[Perioperative prevention of skin injury: an integrative literature review].

Nursing decision making in daily practice needs to be based on scientific knowledge. Evidence-based practice establishes the use of research results in clinical practice, with integrative literature review as one of its resources. This integrative review aimed to find and evaluate the available evidence on efficient nursing care interventions for the prevention of skin injuries in surgical patients, during or as a result of the perioperative period. To select the articles, we used two databases, Cinahl and Medline, resulting in a sample of 14 articles. The results of this analysis indicated that the devices considered most efficient in the prevention of skin injuries were, in decreasing order, the multi-cell pulsating dynamic mattress system, a dry visco-elastic polymer pad and gel cushions.