Page 171 - Psychology of Wounds and Wound Care in Clinical Practice ( PDFDrive )

146 Chapter 6. Treatment

Table 6.1 Three main categories of wound dressing
Dressing
adherence Explanation
Adherent E.g. dressing pads/cotton gauze – able to adhere
to any type of drying wound
Low- adherent E.g. absorbent dressings – designed to reduce
adherence to the wound surface
E.g. hydrocolloids/hydrogels/alginates – dressings
Non- adherent
that maintain a moist gel layer over the wound to
prevent adherence
Adapted from Thomas ( 2003 )

between the wound and the dressing itself – adherence
(Thomas 2003 ) (see Table 6.1 ).
Traditional dressings such as cotton gauze and bandages
were often replaced with more modern technology once
clinical research demonstrated that keeping wounds moist
was beneficial for wound healing (Rippon et al. 2008 ).
However, even some modern dressings cause skin damage
from repeated application and removal, which causes addi-
tional skin damage and increased wound pain. More recently
a category of wound dressings have been introduced that are
designed to minimise the skin trauma and pain caused by
removal. Atraumatic dressings present a category of products
that do not cause trauma to the wound or surrounding skin
on removal and reapplication, thus reducing pain (Thomas
2003 ). Specifically, atraumatic dressings utilise technologies
that have been developed to avoid adhesion, for example
soft silicone adhesive technology (Rippon et al. 2008 ). The
term atraumatic can refer to dressings that are adhesive and
non- adhesive, coated in soft silicone to interact with dry skin,
but not the fragile wound surface. Therefore, it is suggested
that careful selection of atraumatic dressings would benefit
the wound healing process, as they contribute significantly to
a reduction in pain. In support of this, White ( 2008 ) demon-
strated that the introduction of atraumatic dressings with soft
silicone adhesive in replacement of other dressings (including,
adhesive foams and hydrocolloids) significantly reduced