Improving pressure ulcer management in Australian nursing homes: results of the PRIME trial organisational study

Pressure ulcer prevalence is frequently cited as a factor used to determine the quality of nursing care and is used as a proxy measure for nursing home quality. This paper reports the results of the organisational study conducted as a subcomponent of the PRIME trial. The PRIME trial was a multi-dimensional clinical trial designed to investigate the effectiveness of an integrated pressure ulcer management system in reducing the pressure ulcer prevalence and incidence in a cohort of Australian nursing homes. A stratified random sample of staff were interviewed from 17 consenting nursing homes (n=120). The interviews used a 10 question, semi-structured questionnaire covering four organisational quality factors and six PRIME trial implementation factors. Responses to questions were ranked on a scale of 1-5, 1 representing no evidence and 5 representing embedded practice. Data were aggregated by nursing home and the mean scores were calculated. Data were correlated with baseline pressure ulcer prevalence and the post PRIME pressure ulcer prevalence.