Quality of life of people with chronic wounds

Objective: To evaluate the quality of life of people with chronic wounds. Method: Cross sectional study carried out with 176 people with chronic wounds in outpatient and home care in a public health service. The following instruments were used: a sociodemographic, clinical and therapeutic characterization form and the Cardiff Wound Impact Schedule questionnaire for measuring quality of life. The analysis was descriptive and inferential and used the Student's t-test, the ANOVA test and the Mann Whitney and Kruskal-Wallis tests. Results: Among patients in home follow-up, the predominant characteristics were lower limb ulcers, persisting for more than 12 months and with an area of up to 25 cm(2). In the outpatient environment, lower limb ulcers and traumatic wounds prevailed, with a maximum duration of six months and size of up to 25 cm(2). The clinical factors associated with quality of life were: duration of wound, wound etiology, larger size, type of exudate, presence of odor and pain. The QoL domain "well being" was the most affected by the presence of the wound. Conclusion: Clinical factors directly influenced the QoL domains, and it is necessary to use differentiated strategies in order to reduce the impact of wounds on QoL, since the factors can be attenuated or avoided by evaluating the wound and choosing the appropriate treatment.