Pressure Injury Prevalence in Long-Term Care
Updated: Sep 15
INTERNATIONAL EVIDENCE
What the International Evidence Tells Us
Pressure injuries remain an important indicator of care quality and resident safety in long-term care.
Older adults are particularly vulnerable due to frailty, reduced mobility, cognitive impairment, chronic illness, nutritional risk and increased reliance on others for repositioning, pressure redistribution and skin surveillance.
What does international evidence show?
International research demonstrates substantial variation in reported pressure injury prevalence across long-term care settings.
Rather than interpreting a single prevalence figure in isolation, it is important to understand what sits behind the data.
Reported prevalence can be influenced by:
Differences in study design and data collection
Resident acuity and case mix
Inclusion or exclusion of Stage 1 pressure injuries
Definitions and classification methods
Consistency of skin assessment and documentation practices
Evidence insight
Variation in prevalence does not simply reflect differences in resident risk.
It may also reflect differences in how consistently organisations identify, assess, document and respond to pressure injury risk.
Why does this matter for aged care?
Prevalence data tells us what has already occurred.
For prevention, the more important question is:
How effectively are we identifying changing risk before skin damage develops?
Changes in mobility, ability to reposition, nutritional status, continence, cognition, health status and seating tolerance can alter a resident’s pressure injury risk—sometimes rapidly.
A prevention-focused system needs to recognise these changes early and translate them into timely assessment and intervention.
From prevalence to prevention
Understanding prevalence is important.
But reducing pressure injuries requires us to look beyond the number and examine the systems that identify risk, trigger action and support consistent prevention in everyday care.
Recognise risk early. Act early. Prevent avoidable harm.
ROSE — Redefining Pressure Injury Care.
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