Venous leg ulcers are present in patients in almost every area of health care.  Nurses require knowledge and skill in order to appropriately treat patients and their wounds.  A recent Cochrane review highlighted research related to the care of venous leg ulcers. This review is the topic of discussion between EBNAssociate Editor Dr. Dorothy Forbes and Dr. Carolina D Weller the author of the EBN commentary for the Cochrane review.  Dr. Weller summarizes that there are many compression systems available for patients with venous leg ulcers and nurses’ skill level of bandage application is variable.

The Cochrane review related to venous leg ulcers and the EBN commentary and podcast are the focus of the online journal club for this month.  Some points to ponder:

What are your thoughts about the quality of the studies used in the Cochrane Review?

What needs to be done to ensure that nurses have expertise in bandage application and good understanding of the pathophysiology and treatment of venous leg ulcers?

The commentary, article and podcast links are below:

Podcast:  http://bit.ly/17kYWsW

Commentary: ebnurs-2012-101201 – Compression improves healing of venous leg ulcers compared to no compression, with differences between different compression systems  http://bit.ly/1aLRLzu

Original research article: O’Meara S, Cullum N, Nelson EA, Dumville JC. Compression for venous leg ulcers. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2012 Nov 14;11:CD000265 http://1.usa.gov/1aPzz83

Comments about the topic can be posted on this blog, or using twitter at #ebnjc