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Abstract

Introduction. Wound care practices for neonatal and pediatric patients have created a lack of standardized evidence-based guidelines for treatments in clinical practices. Unfortunately, published clinical guidelines for the evaluation and management of wounds in pediatric populations is limited. Consensus groups are used to develop clinical guidelines which define key aspects of the quality of health care, particularly appropriate indications for interventions. The aim of this initiative was to conduct the first two steps of the guideline development process, and to report on the findings from the expert consensus group for pediatric wound care.

Methods. The goal was to recruit a multidisciplinary team that consisted of board certified Pediatric Plastic and Pediatric General Surgeons, WOCN, and research specialists active in the International Society of Pediatric Wound Care (ISPEW). All recruited individuals were emailed and invited to participate. For this study, an adapted questionnaire was created to assess eligibility criteria, information sources, systematic review database search strategies, study selection criteria including keywords. Data was collected on the clinical consensus group’s experience with clinical guideline development, and other clinically significant domains for which the the evidence should be evaluated.

Results. All six invited individuals agreed to participate. 100% of respondents provided the number of years in their current role within their respective institutions and their length of experience with pediatric wound care management. 17% of respondents had 7 to 10 years in their current role, while 66% had more than 10 years practice in pediatric wound care. Domains identified as important to consider included: Cost of Product/Treatment Duration of Treatment, Ease of Applying Product/Performing Treatment, Accessibility of Product, Storage of Product, Length of Time to Apply Product/Perform Treatment.

Discussion. The agreed-upon domains from our study align with previously published consensus group studies. We identified several domains to inform a future systematic review. At this time, no systematic review has been published that has been guided by consensus group domains and search terms for pediatric wound care.

Conclusion. Through the use of this consensus group and conducted surveys, we identified the primary domains necessary to complete a practice-informed systematic review, as well as other key domains that are important in clinical pediatric wound care management .

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