Evaluation of Current Pressure Ulcer Staging.

Background: We sought to assess health professionals' satisfaction with the National Pressure Injury Advisory Panel staging system (NPUAP).

Methods: A paper survey assessing the satisfaction with the NPUAP was distributed to participants of a national wound care meeting. A total of 88 surveys were completed. Results were tabulated using SPSS.

Results: The survey response rate was 50%. Nearly all respondents (95.0%) used NPAUP for documentation. 75.3% indicated that a better staging system was needed. When participants were asked to evaluate their current staging system, 63.5% stated that the system does not adequately reflect patient's clinical condition, 61.6% felt that the current staging system was not easily reproducible, 58.0% believed that the current staging system was generally easy-to-use, and 43.9% indicated that it is unable to suggest management recommendations. When asked about an ideal classification system, the respondents proposed incorporating tissue necrosis (97.6%), depth of tissue involvement (96.3%), discharge documentation (92.5%), presence of osteomyelitis (90%), local infection (88.8%), and systemic infection (80.0%). Overall, 67.0% of the participants wanted to use a classification system that would reflect the progress of injury healing and could be used to indicate the need for intervention.

Discussion: Health care workers caring for pressure injury patients indicated dissatisfaction with the NPAUP.