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The humanistic and economic burden of chronic wounds : A systematic review

Olsson, Maja ; Järbrink, Krister ; Divakar, Ushashree ; Bajpai, Ram ; Upton, Zee ; Schmidtchen, Artur LU and Car, Josip (2019) In Wound Repair and Regeneration 27(1). p.114-125
Abstract

Chronic wounds are a health problem that have devastating consequences for patients and contribute major costs to healthcare systems and societies. To understand the magnitude of this health issue, a systematic review was undertaken. Searches were conducted in MEDLINE, EMBASE, EBM Reviews and Cochrane library, CINAHL, EBSCO, PsycINFO, and Global Health databases for articles published between 2000 and 2015. Included publications had to target adults (≥18 years of age), state wound chronicity (≥3 weeks) and/or label the wounds as chronic, complex, hard-to-heal, or having led to an amputation. The review excluded studies that did not present data on generic health-related quality of life and/or cost data, case studies, randomized... (More)

Chronic wounds are a health problem that have devastating consequences for patients and contribute major costs to healthcare systems and societies. To understand the magnitude of this health issue, a systematic review was undertaken. Searches were conducted in MEDLINE, EMBASE, EBM Reviews and Cochrane library, CINAHL, EBSCO, PsycINFO, and Global Health databases for articles published between 2000 and 2015. Included publications had to target adults (≥18 years of age), state wound chronicity (≥3 weeks) and/or label the wounds as chronic, complex, hard-to-heal, or having led to an amputation. The review excluded studies that did not present data on generic health-related quality of life and/or cost data, case studies, randomized controlled trials, economic modeling studies, abstracts, and editorials. Extracted data were summarized into a narrative synthesis, and for a few articles using the same health-related quality of life instrument, average estimates with 95% confidence intervals were calculated. Thirty articles met the inclusion criteria. Findings revealed that health-related quality of life was lowest for physical pathologies, and based on average estimates were scores most inferior in the domain physical role for both patients with chronic wounds and for those with wound-related amputations. The cost burden was mainly attributed to amputations for patients also comorbid with diabetes, where the cost for hospitalization ranged from US$12,851 to US$16,267 (median) for this patient group. Patients with chronic wounds have poor health-related quality of life in general and wound-related costs are substantial. Development and implementation of wound management strategies that focus on increasing health-related quality of life and effectively reduce costs for this patient group are urgently needed.

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author
; ; ; ; ; and
organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
in
Wound Repair and Regeneration
volume
27
issue
1
pages
114 - 125
publisher
Wiley-Blackwell
external identifiers
  • scopus:85057969985
  • pmid:30362646
ISSN
1067-1927
DOI
10.1111/wrr.12683
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
54579215-6c2b-407e-b4ac-debb8b4a21af
date added to LUP
2019-01-07 16:21:00
date last changed
2024-04-15 19:50:52
@article{54579215-6c2b-407e-b4ac-debb8b4a21af,
  abstract     = {{<p>Chronic wounds are a health problem that have devastating consequences for patients and contribute major costs to healthcare systems and societies. To understand the magnitude of this health issue, a systematic review was undertaken. Searches were conducted in MEDLINE, EMBASE, EBM Reviews and Cochrane library, CINAHL, EBSCO, PsycINFO, and Global Health databases for articles published between 2000 and 2015. Included publications had to target adults (≥18 years of age), state wound chronicity (≥3 weeks) and/or label the wounds as chronic, complex, hard-to-heal, or having led to an amputation. The review excluded studies that did not present data on generic health-related quality of life and/or cost data, case studies, randomized controlled trials, economic modeling studies, abstracts, and editorials. Extracted data were summarized into a narrative synthesis, and for a few articles using the same health-related quality of life instrument, average estimates with 95% confidence intervals were calculated. Thirty articles met the inclusion criteria. Findings revealed that health-related quality of life was lowest for physical pathologies, and based on average estimates were scores most inferior in the domain physical role for both patients with chronic wounds and for those with wound-related amputations. The cost burden was mainly attributed to amputations for patients also comorbid with diabetes, where the cost for hospitalization ranged from US$12,851 to US$16,267 (median) for this patient group. Patients with chronic wounds have poor health-related quality of life in general and wound-related costs are substantial. Development and implementation of wound management strategies that focus on increasing health-related quality of life and effectively reduce costs for this patient group are urgently needed.</p>}},
  author       = {{Olsson, Maja and Järbrink, Krister and Divakar, Ushashree and Bajpai, Ram and Upton, Zee and Schmidtchen, Artur and Car, Josip}},
  issn         = {{1067-1927}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  number       = {{1}},
  pages        = {{114--125}},
  publisher    = {{Wiley-Blackwell}},
  series       = {{Wound Repair and Regeneration}},
  title        = {{The humanistic and economic burden of chronic wounds : A systematic review}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/wrr.12683}},
  doi          = {{10.1111/wrr.12683}},
  volume       = {{27}},
  year         = {{2019}},
}