Pressure sore risk assessment in palliative care.

Pressure sore prevention in palliative care is recognized as being an essential element of holistic care, with the primary goal of promoting quality of life for patient and family. Little is known about the incidence of pressure sore development and the use of pressure sore risk assessment tools in palliative care settings. The development of a risk assessment tool specifically for palliative care patients in a 41-bedded specialist palliative care unit is described. The risk assessment tool was developed as part of a tissue viability practice development initiative. The approach adopted in the validation of the Hunters Hill Marie Curie Centre pressure sore risk assessment tool was the comparative analysis of professional judgment of experienced palliative care nurses with the numerical scores achieved during the assessment of risk on 291 patients (529 risk assessment events). This comparative analysis identified the threshold for different degrees of risk for the patient group involved: low risk, medium risk, high risk and very high risk. Further work is being undertaken to evaluate the inter-rater reliability of the new tool. A number of issues are explored in this paper in relation to pressure sore prevention in palliative care: the role of risk assessment tools, the sometimes conflicting aims of trying to ensure comfort and prevent pressure sore damage, and the uncertainties faced by palliative care nurses when they are trying to maintain quality of life for the dying.