Summary

The documentation of chronic wounds is done in practice by several different professional groups with enormous discrepance in knowledge. The aim of this study was to assess 12 pictures of chronic wounds by 5 defined subpopulations. Material and methods: The probands of the subpopulation were specialists, physicians, nurses working in nursing services, nurses from working in hospitals and laities. They all had to assess the basically needed parameters of wound healing in comparison to a new developed 2-dimensional, colorimetric computer based wound measurement system, used for the first time in a clinical investigation. The results of our study demonstrate that the evaluation of different wound healing parameters by different subpopulations is done with enormous variances. All togehter we found an unexpected deviation between the digital measured data in contrast to the valuated data of the different subpopulation. The estimation of the wound surface and detailed wound coatings shows abberations of partly more than 100%. The assessment of the length, wide, wound surface, infection and wound-phase shows a strong dependence on the training of the appropriate subpopulation. Conclusion: A sufficient and reliable wound documentation is not possible without any technical support such as a digital photo-documentation.