Diabetes foot ulcers : a descriptive literature review on the nurse’s role in prevention of diabetic foot ulcers

Abstract

Diabetes is a long-lasting and complicated disease that affects each aspect of a patient’s life along with the lives of their friends and families. When diabetes is not well taken care of, it can result into major complications one of them being diabetes foot ulcers. Diabetes foot ulcers are a major public health concern and quite costly to the taxpayers, also patients suffering from diabetes foot ulcers tend to have poor quality of life.

The aim of the thesis was to find out nurse’s role in prevention of diabetic foot ulcers through reviewing of existing literature. This was through a descriptive literature review where 12 articles on this topic were gathered, read, summarised and analysed to come up with the results through an inductive content analysis.

The purpose of the thesis was to offer information and knowledge related to prevention of diabetic foot ulcers to nursing students interested in taking care of patients with diabetic foot ulcers, thus raising more awareness on this issue.

The key findings were through two subthemes which were, awareness about diabetes and its complications was poor among the general population hence an urgent need for patient education and two screening of patients was found to help prevent diabetic foot ulcers The importance of nurses could not be emphasised enough as they play important roles in the society especially in the promotion and prevention of diseases. The thesis concludes that patient education and screening of patients can help prevent diabetes foot ulcers.

The author recommends that in future more research can be done specifically on diabetes foot ulcers in the Finnish population.