The 20 th Annual Symposium on Advanced Wound Care and the Wound Healing Society Meeting

A clinical investigation into the relationship between increased periwound skin temperature and localized wound infection Marjorie Fierheller, RN, BScN, Ms(c); Dr. Michael Clark; Dr. RG Sibbald; Chronic Wound Healing Clinic, Mississauga, Ontario Many studies relate the presence of chronic wound infection to reduced strength of healing tissue and delayed healing. Although failure to heal may be the result of many coexisting factors, infection is often found to be a significant contributor. Increased local temperature is a classic sign of wound infection and its accurate measurement may have the potential to aid in diagnosis of chronic wound infection at the bedside. Although infrared thermometry is currently utilized for this purpose in some chronic wound care practice settings, research evidence to support such use is very limited. An experimental, cross-sectional clinical research study was conducted to investigate the relationship between increased periwound skin temperature and localized wound infection in patients with chronic leg ulcers of non-arterial etiology as a thesis for the Masters in Wound Healing and Tissue Repair, Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK. Participants were enrolled from within the population of a chronic wound healing clinic. Data collected from non-wounded participants (n = 20) using a testretest method support reliability of the infrared thermometer utilized for this study (Pearson's Correlation r = .939). Analysis of data collected from participants with chronic, non-arterial, leg ulcers (n = 40) is supportive of a statistically significant relationship between increased periwound skin temperatures and wound infection (P = 0.000).