The importance of continuous wound measuring

Georgina Gethin is Research Fellow, Clinical Nursing and Midwifery, Faculty of Nursing, Royal College of Surgeons, Dublin, Ireland, and Sligo General Hospital, Sligo Wound measurement provides baseline information while continuous measurement helps to predict healing and aids monitoring of treatment efficacy and evaluation. It is also objective and can be useful in cost-benefit analysis. Methods such as the ruler technique are inaccurate and do not account for changes in wound shape and such practice should be discouraged. Acetate and planimetry are widely available, easy to use and have a good inter-rater agreement as demonstrated by many studies. The result of most methods of wound measuring depends on the accuracy of the original tracing. Methods, however, are not interchangeable.