Identifying and exploring physical and psychological morbidity and patient and family care giver resilience following acute wound development and/or wound blistering post orthopaedic surgery: a systematic review

Purpose

To identify the literature that examined and explored physical and psychological morbidity and patient and family care giver resilience following acute wound development and/or wound blistering post orthopaedic surgery.

Methods

A systematic review of the literature using the databases MEDLINE, CINAHL and EMBASE was undertaken. Papers were examined using title and abstract for relevance to the primary and secondary outcomes by all three authors. The primary outcome of interest was family care giver resilience following acute wound development and/or wound blistering post orthopaedic surgery.

Results

The search yielded 275 records which were screened by reading both the title and abstracts. After removing any duplicates, eight studies were considered eligible and were reviewed as full text. Following full review none of the studies were included in this review.

Conclusions
There were no papers that investigated or examined the concept of resilience in relation to the management of acute post-surgical orthopaedic wounds. Four of the papers identified, following the review process, did discuss quality of life outcomes and how these may be improved following wound development. However, most papers focused on the management of chronic wounds, for example leg ulceration, pressure ulceration and diabetic foot ulceration. It is apparent from the review that there is no evidence currently available that explores patient and family care giver resilience following acute wound development and/or wound blistering post orthopaedic surgery.