Patient experience of negative pressure wound therapy: A qualitative study.

The study was conducted at one Japanese plastic surgery ward with hospitalized patients, so experiences may not apply to outpatient or other settings. The analysed sample was 17 adults, stopped after no new data emerged, and most were older than 65 years and unemployed. Participants had to be able to talk about experiences and cooperate, and dementia, mental instability, and motor aphasia were excluded, so people with communication or cognitive difficulties were not represented. The methods state interviews lasted approximately 30 minutes, but results report 8 to 28 minutes, mean 16 minutes. The methods require patients able to independently perform daily living activities, but the limitation section says patients were incapable of independently performing daily living activities. One interview per participant was used because hospitalization was brief, and all participants were inpatients because NPWT remained inpatient-only in Japan.

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Do not conclude that one negative pressure wound therapy device causes less pain than another. Five participants who received both systems said the ULTA device felt less painful, but this was a qualitative interview study, not a trial comparing devices.