Patient safety in the prevention and care of skin lesions in newborns: integrative review - Revista Brasileira de Enfermagem

ABSTRACT

Objective:

to describe the main evidence available in the literature on safe practices in the prevention and care of skin lesions in newborns admitted to Neonatal Intensive Care Units.

Methods:

integrative literature review in the PubMed, BDENF, LILACS, MEDLINE, SciELO and Cochrane Library databases between 2013 and 2018. We included primary articles on: lesion prevention and skin care in newborns in Portuguese, English or Spanish and excluded editorials, thesis, dissertations and duplicate articles. For the evidence level, we used the Melnyk and Fineout-Overholt classification, which classifies studies between weak to strong evidence.

Results:

a total of 10 articles with moderate to weak evidence on thermoregulation, bathing, lesion prevention, use of patches and skin antisepsis.

Final considerations:

there was a shortage of publications with high evidence, and it is necessary to invest in research that seeks to support safer skin care practices.