Application of Infrared Thermography in Early Warning of Pressure Injury: a Prospective Observational Study

Cai, Fuman, Jiang, Xiaoqiong, Hou, Xiangqing, Wang, Duolao ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2788-2464, Wang, Yu, Deng, Haisong, Guo, Hailei, Wang, Haishuang and Li, Xiaomei (2021) 'Application of Infrared Thermography in Early Warning of Pressure Injury: a Prospective Observational Study'. Journal of Clinical Nursing, Vol 30, Issue 3-4, pp. 559-571.

Text Application of Infrared thermography in Early Warning of Pressure Injury_Final.docx - Accepted Version Download (1MB)

Abstract

Aims and objectives
To verify the ability of infrared thermography in objectively identifying pressure injury and its application value in the early warning of pressure injury.

Background
There is subjectivity in assessing the risk of pressure injury as well as diagnosis in clinical settings, which makes early detection and prevention difficult.

Design
Prospective, cohort study.

Method
Four hundred and fifteen patients admitted to the adult intensive care units were enrolled by a convenience sampling method, and they received a follow‐up monitoring for 10 days. The risk of pressure injury was assessed via Braden scale, and thermal images of sacral area were obtained by infrared thermal imager once a day. The predictive effects of infrared thermography and Braden scale on pressure injury were compared by the receiver operating characteristic curve from which the optimal cutoff value of skin temperature for predicting pressure injury was determined. The effect of skin temperature on pressure injury was described and compared, using Kaplan‐Meier curve and Cox proportional hazard regression model respectively. We followed STROBE checklist for reporting the study.

Results
The relative temperature of sacral area was negatively correlated with the risk of pressure injury. The efficiency of infrared thermography for diagnosing pressure injury was better than that of Braden scale. Based on the relative temperature optimal cutoff value (‐0.1°C), Kaplan‐Meier curve and Cox proportional hazard regression model analysis showed the incidence of pressure injury with relative temperature below ‐0.1°C was higher than the group with relative temperature above ‐0.1°C.

Conclusions
Infrared thermography can objectively and accurately identify local hypothermia warnings of pressure injury before visual recognition. The application of infrared thermography into routine pressure injury risk assessment provides a timely and reliable method for nursing practitioners.

Relevance to clinical practice
Infrared thermography has great value of clinical application in daily pressure injury assessment. It is of great significance to make a faster and more objective clinical judgment for patients at risk of pressure injury.

Item Type:	Article
Subjects:	QT Physiology > Human Physiology > QT 160 Cold Temperature WN Radiology. Diagnostic imaging > WN 180 Diagnostic imaging (General) WX Hospitals and Other Health Facilities > Clinical Departments and Units > WX 200 General works
Faculty: Department:	Clinical Sciences & International Health > Clinical Sciences Department
Digital Object Identifer (DOI):	https://doi.org/10.1111/jocn.15576
Depositing User:	Stacy Murtagh
Date Deposited:	09 Dec 2020 15:25
Last Modified:	30 Nov 2021 02:02
URI:	https://archive.lstmed.ac.uk/id/eprint/16347

Statistics

View details

Actions (login required)

Edit Item