Investigation of the Nursing Theses Related toWound Care in Turkey: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Objective: It is aimed to determine practices related to wound care in postgraduate theses in the field of nursing in ourcountry with this study. Materials and Methods: The data were collected by first scanning the literature. Database of the Higher Education CouncilNational Thesis Center with keywords of searched “Wound,” “Wound care,” “Wound healing,” “Wound infection,” “Nurs ing,” “Surgery,” “Burn,” “Colostomy and Stoma,” “Diabetic wound,” and “Pressure ulcers.” At the end of the searching,110 theses were determined between 1984 and 2019. Nineteen theses, whose full text was not available, excluded from thestudy and 91 theses were examined. Results: It has been determined that the majority of the theses (77 theses) written in the past 9 years, and 77.3% of them (85theses) written at the master’s level. It was determined that 63.7% of theses were descriptive, 36.3% were quasi–experimentaland experimental. When the distribution of theses by wound type is examined, it was determined that 34.5% were stoma,20.0% were burn wounds, 17.3% were surgical wounds, 16.4% were diabetic wound (feet), and 11.8% were pressure ulcers.Theses focused on wound care education and risk determination, compliance, and effectiveness of wound care materials. Conclusion: It has been determined that theses on wound care mostly focus on stoma and burn wounds and are mostlydescriptive, such as pain, anxiety, quality of life, knowledge level, and determining care burden. It is thought that there is aneed for randomized controlled experimental and qualitative studies for wound care.