DISPOSABLE BEDPADS FOR INCONTINENCE - PREDICTING THEIR CLINICAL LEAKAGE PROPERTIES USING LABORATORY TESTS

A multi-centre project has been run to identify laboratory tests capab le of predicting the leakage performance of disposable incontinence be dpads. Each of 95 subjects tested each of six products for a week in t urn and reported whether or not they and/or their carers found the lea kage performance of each product acceptable. In addition, carers noted the severity with which individual used bedpads had leaked so that, w hen they had been weighed, their leakage performance could be determin ed as a function of urine weight. These clinical data were compared wi th results from the 16 different laboratory tests used routinely for b edpad evaluation in three hospital laboratories. Each test was evaluat ed by seeing how well the data it yielded correlated with the clinical test data. No individual test was very successful at predicting the p erformance of bedpads when used as sole protection but a combination o f an absorption capacity test and an absorption time test predicted th e percentage of users/carers finding leakage performance acceptable, a ccurate to within +/- eight percentage points for all six test product s. A different absorption capacity test proved most successful for bed pads used as back-up to bodyworn products. It predicted the percentage of users/carers finding leakage performance acceptable, accurate to /- five percentage points for all six products. (C) 1998 IPEM. Publish ed by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.