The risk of surgery-related pressure ulcer in diabetics: A systematic review and meta-analysis

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Postoperative pressure ulcers are known as the most important quality indicators of intraoperative care that create critical and costly complications during hospital care. Accordingly, this study was performed to determine the risk factor for diabetes in postoperative pressure ulcers. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The present study is a systematic review of PubMed, Scopus and the Web of Science databases with using standardized keywords of the performed English language articles between Jan 2010 to Jan 2020. The articles were searched independently by two related researchers to avoid possible biases. Then, all collected articles were reviewed, and articles with inclusion criteria were evaluated using a data collection table. It should be noted that the data were analyzed using STATA software version 11.1. RESULTS: Overall, the results showed that 19724 patients were identified from 15 studies conducted in Asia (six), the America (four), Europe (four), and Australia (one) from 1989 to 2019. The results showed that patients with diabetes were more likely to experience surgery-related pressure ulcers than patients without diabetes (The odds ratio of 1.52; the 95% confidence interval: 1.25–1.85). CONCLUSION: In general, patients with diabetes increased the risk of surgery-related pressure ulcers about 1.5 times more than others. Accordingly, the reduction of surgery-induced pressure ulcers should be more extensively considered in patients with diabetes.