Assessment and management of pain in chronic wounds: a national survey of Australian health care practitioners caring for people with chronic wounds
Background Pain is one of the key characteristics which distress patients with chronic wounds. Chronic wound pain has a significant impact on the patient’s quality of life and delays wound healing. Assessment and management of pain during wound dressing changes is well addressed, however, chronic persistent wound pain is underassessed and under-treated resulting in patients’ perception that wound pain is something they have to suffer or manage themselves. The purpose of this study was to investigate wound practitioners assessment of chronic persistent wound pain. It sought to identify what assessment tools are utilised in determining the level of pain, the frequency of assessment and how the pain is managed.