Assessment of tissular integrity in patients with diabetic foot.

Objective: Evaluate the impairment of tissue integrity in patients with diabetic foot and verify its association with time of diagnosis of the disease.

Methods: Cross-sectional study conducted with 134 patients in an outpatient clinic located in the Northeast region of Brazil. A semi-structured questionnaire was used for data collection, which was subjected to descriptive analysis and the Mann-Whitney U non-parametric test.

Results: Indicators with the lowest average score were: skin temperature, sweating, skin lesions, right and left pedal pulses, right and left tibial pulses. Patients less than ten years old had worse scores on thickness, elasticity, right tibial pulse and tissue integrity. Those with a diagnosis time of more than ten years had a greater impairment of sensation and right pulse.

Conclusion: All indicators showed some impairment of tissue integrity, and the time of diagnosis of the disease was associated with six of these.