Pressure Injury Prevention and Management in Healthcare Settings

Pressure injuries, also known as pressure ulcers, arise when sustained mechanical loading and shear compromise capillary blood flow, leading to localised tissue ischaemia and skin breakdown. They most often occur over bony prominences in patients with limited mobility, sensory impairment or critical illness. Prevention hinges on comprehensive risk assessment, regular repositioning, optimisation of nutrition and moisture management, and the use of pressure‐redistributing support surfaces. Standardised risk assessment tools—such as the Braden, Norton and Waterlow scales—guide clinical decision‐making but require ongoing validation across diverse populations. Prophylactic dressings and skin barrier products mitigate friction, shear and microclimate factors. When injuries develop, management spans debridement, moisture‐balanced wound dressings and offloading strategies, supported by multidisciplinary input from nursing, nutrition, physiotherapy and wound care specialists. Emerging approaches leverage electronic health records and machine learning to enhance risk prediction and personalise preventive regimens. Globally, pressure injuries impose substantial clinical and economic burdens, increasing hospital stay and healthcare costs while diminishing patient quality of life. Research efforts now focus on scalable, resource‐sensitive interventions and the integration of novel technologies to bridge evidence gaps and optimise outcomes.

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Pressure Injury Prevention and Management in Healthcare Settings publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in pressure injury prevention and management in healthcare settings across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Pressure injury: Localised damage to skin and underlying tissue, typically over bony prominences, resulting from sustained pressure or pressure combined with shear forces.

Risk assessment tool: Standardised instrument, such as the Braden Scale, used to estimate a patient’s likelihood of developing a pressure injury and to inform preventive care.

Support surface: Specialised mattress, overlay or cushion engineered to redistribute pressure and reduce tissue deformation in at-risk patients.

Prophylactic dressing: Protective material applied to areas at risk of breakdown to minimise friction, shear and moisture accumulation.

Machine learning model: Computational algorithm trained on clinical and demographic data to predict the probability of pressure injury development and guide targeted interventions.

References

1. Effect of a self-developed fixation device on preventing endotracheal intubation-related pressure injury: a randomised controlled trial. Critical Care (2024).
2. Accuracy and clinical effectiveness of risk prediction tools for pressure injury occurrence: An umbrella review. PLOS Medicine (2025).
3. A Fused Multi-Channel Prediction Model of Pressure Injury for Adult Hospitalized Patients—The “EADB” Model. AI (2025).