Abstract

SILVA, Carlos Alberto Marques da; PEREIRA, Débora de Sousa; ALMEIDA, Diogo Silvino da Costa  and  VENANCIO, Marisa Isabel Lucas. Diabetic foot and assessment of the risk of ulceration. Rev. Enf. Ref. [online]. 2014, vol.serIV, n.1, pp.153-161. ISSN 0874-0283.  https://doi.org/10.12707/RIII12166.

Diabetic foot ulcers have been receiving increased attention due to the severity of the situations and the large number of diabetic patients, whose prevalence exceeds 10% of the Portuguese population. The lack of feet vigilance among diabetic patients is an actual problem which limits the identification of risk factors, prevention and early intervention. To overcome this problem, nurses need to be familiar with and perform procedures for regular vigilance and assessment of the risk for ulceration in diabetic patients. Therefore, this paper aims to update knowledge on diabetic foot and characterise the process of assessing the risk for foot ulceration in diabetic patients. Recent scientific papers, reports, monographs and guidelines published on this topic were analysed. Despite the different opinions and differences, we concluded that the theoretical frameworks found are a sufficiently sound basis for nursing intervention, and that the existing legal framework is relatively simple, objective and achievable. The assessment of the risk for diabetic foot ulceration is within the reach of family nurses, particularly regarding the competences of level 1 teams.

Keywords : nursing; risk; diabetic foot; ulcer.

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