Using Patient-Reported Experiences to Inform the Use of Foam Dressings for Hard-to-Heal Wounds: Perspectives from a Wound Care Expert Panel
Summary: An international expert panel convened to address a persistent gap between clinical efficacy outcomes and the lived experience of patients managing hard-to-heal (chronic) wounds — published in the Journal of Wound Care (November 2024). The panel identified five core patient-reported experience (PRE) domains that are underserved by current dressing selection practice: wound-related pain, wound odour, wound-related itch, excessive exudate management, and self-care capacity. While foam dressings are widely selected based on exudate management benchmarks and laboratory performance data, the panel argues this fails to capture what matters most to patients, particularly those managing wounds over extended periods in community and home settings. The review maps specific foam dressing properties — including odour control features, atraumatic removal characteristics, high absorption and retention capacity, and extended wear time — to each PRE domain, providing a practical framework for dressing selection that centres patient experience. The paper also addresses self-management capacity, recognizing that many wound patients change their own dressings and require dressings that are straightforward to apply and remove independently. The panel calls on wound care providers, research scientists, and the healthcare industry to work collaboratively to address these unmet needs, and frames the paper as a call for accountability across all stakeholders involved in wound dressing development and deployment.
Key Highlights:
- Five PRE domains identified as priority targets for foam dressing design and selection: pain, odour, itch, exudate management, and self-care capacity
- Current foam dressing selection largely driven by lab performance data; panel argues clinical and patient-experience gaps remain underaddressed
- Dressing properties mapped to specific PRE outcomes — providing a practical selection framework for clinicians and product developers
- Self-management dimension elevated: dressings must support patients who independently manage their own wound care at home
- International panel spans nursing, podiatry, biomedical engineering, dermatology, and wound care research (11 institutions across 8 countries)
- Relevance: Patient-centred wound care is gaining policy traction; this framework supports both practice and regulatory discussions around real-world dressing performance
Keywords: foam dressings, patient-reported outcomes wound care, hard-to-heal wounds, wound pain, wound odour, wound self-management
Kevin Woo Nick Santamaria Dimitri Beeckman Paulo Alves Breda Cullen Amit Gefen José Luis Lázaro-Martínez Hadar Lev-Tov Bijan Najafi Andrew Sharpe Terry Swanson