Written by Mölnlycke Health Care on August 22, 2024
This content is sponsored by Mölnlycke Health Care.
On a global level, there were around 9,000,000 new fire, heat, and hot substance injuries as of 2017. In the United States, 398,000 burn injuries require medical attention every year. These burn injuries can significantly change the burn survivor's life in many different ways. As chronic conditions, burns must be thought of in terms of requiring a variety of long-term support for potentially life-altering symptoms – from skin concerns, sleep challenges, temperature regulation and others. If burn treatment and healing can be addressed head-on, it is possible to ease the trauma, facilitate a less painful burn healing process, and improve the burn survivor's quality of life.
Burn survivors experience trauma that extends beyond the burn itself. Ongoing burn care can cause trauma throughout the healing journey. Up to 48% of survivors report ongoing pain from their burn injury, and 74% of patients express that they experience moderate to severe pain during dressing changes. Not only are pain and trauma physically difficult for patients, they can actively impede healing.
Minimizing pain by employing modern burn treatment and best practices for dressing changes not only delivers less traumatic care, it can promote healing. And pain prevention, which is particularly applicable to dressing change, is a previously underestimated priority, according to a recent global burn care survey.
Burn dressing selection is a critical element in improving the burn treatment experience. As an overwhelming percentage of survivors report pain at dressing changes, helping minimize this pain should be a burn care priority. Despite the importance of burn dressings in atraumatic care and healing, many current burn dressing protocols are not aligned with international guidelines and best practices. Effective burn healing begins with less pain and the ability to support undisturbed wound healing, and the right burn dressings lead the way.
Proper burn dressings make a difference in healing. Modern burn dressings are designed to reduce the risk of wound maceration and further tissue damage, provide an antimicrobial barrier, and allow for longer wear times. The use of proper modern dressings enables undisturbed, faster healing and less trauma as opposed to other burn treatments. For example, traditional dressings can adhere to the wound bed and cause pain upon removal. Another burn treatment protocol, based on silver sulfadiazine (SSD) cream or bacitracin and gauze, requires more frequent dressing changes, which goes against the recommendation for undisturbed healing. Longer-wearing dressings enable protection for newly forming tissue, help reduce the risk of infection, and promote a moist wound-healing environment. Moreover, a less painful experience supports patient compliance with treatment and reduces the fear and psychological trauma related to dressing changes.
One benefit of atraumatic dressings is long-term cost-effectiveness, supported by the reduction in the frequency of dressing changes as well as the possibility of reducing the likelihood of complications and other patient interventions, such as the need for pain medication or lengthier hospital stays.
What characteristics does an ideal burn dressing have? The survey mentioned above of global burn experts in 49 different countries identified the necessary properties of an ideal burn dressing. The survey expanded on earlier results that did not present a global view. Respondents (196) indicated that the most important burn dressing characteristics in a cumulative ranking include:
Lack of adhesion
Pain-free dressing change
Requirement for fewer dressing changes
In a linear ranking, the characteristics cited were:
anti-infective
pain-reduction
high absorbency.
Importantly, 95% of respondents believe that the choice of burn dressing affects the clinical outcome.
In addition to these key points, such as a drive to move away from excessive burn dressing changes and to adopt more advanced dressings, more advanced therapies, and dressing materials led to the trends in the survey. Considering these characteristics, what drove the clinicians' needs?
Anti-infectiveness: burns are subject to a high risk of infection; the deeper the wound, the more important this factor is.
Pain-free dressing change and pain reduction: dressing changes can be painful, which demands a lack of adhesion to the wound bed, and advanced materials that enable fewer dressing changes and undisturbed healing with high absorbency. Less pain and a need for fewer pain medications and sedation help mobilize patients earlier. Reducing pain equals less stress and faster healing times.
These characteristics are also emphasized in the ISBI (International Society for Burn Injury) Practice Guidelines for Burn Care, although this is not an exhaustive list. The ISBI also cites a number of other properties of ideal dressing design beyond these factors – from being ready to use to reducing dressing time to being acceptable to the patient.
From a health economics perspective, cost is also a factor in developing and adopting ideal burn dressings. The overall cost of treatment will likely be the measure by which burn care is evaluated in the future, so the cost of an individual dressing or the materials it is made from will be superseded by overall treatment cost figures. For example, using an advanced dressing will reduce the number of dressing changes – going from once a day to once or twice a week, which reduces the amount of time clinicians must spend on dressing changes and potentially reduces the amount of pain medication required.
Reaching the goal of no trauma and no more pain for the patient at dressing changes requires rethinking the approach to burn care and dressing materials. This should take into account the best practices and ideal dressing properties outlined while also looking at the big picture economically. Advanced dressings and an emphasis on less pain and undisturbed healing give burn survivors gentle burn care.
Mölnlycke Health Care's portfolio of advanced wound dressings adheres to these ideal dressing properties. With a range of dressings available, clinicians can select the right dressing for the type of burn being dressed. Patients benefit from less pain and anxiety at dressing changes, enduring fewer dressing changes, and an overall better patient healing experience.
Learn more about Global burn care and the ideal burn dressing, and find out more about general burn treatment and care.