What is a Wound Dressing?
Wound dressing dates back to 2,000 BC when Egyptians would apply a paste of honey, lint, and grease to the open wound area to clean it and help it heal. We’ve come a long way since primitive first aid. Modern medicine has given us wound dressings that utilise advanced materials like hydrocolloids and antimicrobials.
But the principles of wound dressing have stayed much the same: keep the wound clean of bacteria and protect it as the body creates new tissue. So, what is a dressing for a wound? In this article, we’ll give a thorough wound dressing description and look at why dressings are so important.
What is a wound dressing?
Wound dressing meaning:
A clean pad applied over a wound to protect it while it heals naturally.
When bandaging a wound, the dressing should be the only item to come into direct contact with the wound area. The dressing should be sterile or completely clean to minimise the chance of bacteria and other harmful particles getting into the body via the wound and causing an infection.
What is wound dressing in nursing?
Dressing a wound is one of the fundamental aspects of first aid, healthcare, and nursing. So, what is dressing a wound? Wound dressing is used in nursing to keep wounds clean, protected, and to help the body heal. In its simplest form, the process of dressing a wound consists of cleaning the wound, applying a clean dressing pad, and securing it in place with dressing retention tape or a bandage.
Wound dressing can be done by anyone. A trained professional might dress a wound in the emergency room, or an untrained individual can put a dressing on to take care of a wound at home or during first aid. Some of the most common situations for wound dressing are
- Following an injury, an untrained person might use a first aid kit to dress a wound.
- A first aid responder might dress a wound at the scene of an accident or on the way to the hospital.
- A healthcare professional might dress a wound when someone comes to A&E.
- A nurse might dress a wound after a patient has had surgery.
- A nurse might regularly re-dress a patient’s wound in a care home while it heals.
- A patient might be shown how to put new dressings on to care for a wound at home.
Wound dressing doesn’t stop at human applications. Vets need to be trained in wound dressing too. Many wound dressing techniques for animals are the same as those for humans, so choosing the right veterinary dressings has many similarities to human healthcare.
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Wound Dressing Equipment
There are lots of different ways to dress a wound to meet different needs. A post-operative stitched wound needs different care than a large burn wound. Some pieces of equipment are always needed for wound care, and there are some essentials that healthcare professionals must have on hand to deal with different types of injury or if something goes wrong with a wound dressing.
Here’s a comprehensive wound dressing kit list.
Gauze Swabs
Gauze swabs are excellent tools for mopping up blood and cleaning wounds prior to dressing them. Gauze has fantastic absorption capacity and also has wicking properties that move moisture from one side of the material to the other.
Additionally, gauze is non-linting which means its fibres won’t come away and get stuck in the wound bed when cleaning it. Because of this, gauze is also used as a primary layer in wound dressing. You can get sterile gauze swabs and non-sterile gauze swabs, depending on what you need them for. Ideally, sterile gauze swabs should be used for cleaning wounds, during surgery, for open wounds, and for post-op wound care.
Dressing Retention Tape
Dressing retention tape can be used to hold non-adhesive dressings in place or secure bandages that have been wrapped over dressings. It’s a good idea to choose a hypoallergenic dressing retention tape like ours to minimise the chance of irritation or an allergic reaction in the patient.
You can also use microporous tape or safety pins to hold dressings on the body or keep bandages in place.
Disposable Gloves and Surgical Face Masks
An important part of hygiene protocol. Putting a barrier between yourself and any body fluids is essential for your own protection, so be sure to wear a pair of disposable gloves. Ensuring you don’t make direct contact with a wound also helps to ensure you don’t transfer any bacteria to the patient. Although, it’s still important to wash your hands before treating them.
Wearing a surgical mask will catch any water droplets that may come out of your mouth and go into the wound while you’re treating it at close proximity.
Cotton-Tipped Applicators and Cotton Balls
Cotton-tipped applicators and cotton balls are used to clean wound areas and surrounding areas and apply topical treatments to the wound without making direct contact.
Saline Solution and Saline Cleansing Wipes
Saline wound wash solution can be used to clean wounds and rinse dirt and debris from the area before dressing it. Saline wipes can be used to clean the wound area to ensure better adhesion of dressings.
Saline solution is made to mimic the body’s natural fluids like blood and tears and so won’t disturb the balance of the wound tissues by causing irritation or drawing fluid out of the area.
Assorted Adhesive Dressings
These thinner, more flexible dressings are ideal for minor wounds and post-op wounds where there is minimal exudate and trauma. Adhesive dressings have a strip of the adhesive area around the wound pad that holds it on the body, meaning there’s no need for tape or a bandage over the top.
You can get washproof adhesive dressings and non-washproof adhesive dressings.
Assorted Non-Adhesive Dressings
Non-adhesive dressings consist of only the dressing pad without the sticky area around it. These require bandages or tape to keep them on the body. Non-adhesive dressings tend to have a higher capacity for absorbency. Some, like Steropax Wound Dressings and Ambulance Dressings come with a built-in conforming bandage.
It’s good to have a selection of dressings in stock so you can choose the right size and absorbency for the wound you’re treating. A selection of wound dressings in different sizes, as well as double-sided non-adherent dressing pads, is a good range to keep in your kit.
Ambulance Dressings
Ambulance Dressings are designed for severe trauma wounds. As per their name, they are usually used by first responders, but any wound dressing kit can benefit from ambulance dressings, so you have something appropriate if faced with a serious injury at the last minute.
Eye Pad Dressings
Specially designed for eye injuries, eye pad dressings are ergonomically shaped to be easier to apply, more effective, and more comfortable to wear over the eye area.
Wound Closures
Wound closures are flexible strips reinforced with nylon fibres. These hold wounds together when a cut is too deep to close up on its own. When a wound needs to be closed to be dressed, wound closures are handy.
See a more complete list in our article Equipment Needed for Wound Dressing.
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Why should we use dressings on wounds?
The purpose of wound dressing is to help the body heal and prevent infection while it is vulnerable. The purpose of the skin is to provide a barrier between the body’s vital organs and the outside world. When there is an open wound, the body is exposed to potential infection, as bacteria, pathogens, viruses, and other harmful agents can enter the body.
The overall wound dressing purpose is to
- Decrease pain and suffering.
- Facilitate haemostasis (stop the flow of blood out of the body).
- Protect the wound from the external environment (from bacteria, germs, and foreign bodies).
- Protect the wound from body fluids and waste that could be harmful.
- Promote healing of the wound.
- Protect the injured part of the body while it heals.
What functions should a dressing fulfil for effective wound healing?
The functions of wound dressing are to maintain a safe environment for the wound while the body goes through the natural healing process. A proper wound dressing can have the effect of
- Preventing the wound from drying out.
- Exposing the wound to active ingredients that help with healing, such as silver or antiseptic.
- Providing padding to absorb the impact of knocks.
- Soak up exudate from the wound.
The principles of wound dressing in nursing
There are three fundamental principles to wound dressing that make it an essential part of wound management.
- Provide a temporary physical protective barrier.
- Absorb exudate from the wound.
- Provide an optimal environment for re-epithelialization (the growth of new, healthy skin tissue).
The body’s needs in order to heal different wounds vary wildly. For example, an over granulating wound requires a moist dressing, preferably with antimicrobial properties, to keep the wound bed clean while it heals. A post-operative stitched wound may only require a thin, adhesive, waterproof dressing to keep the stitches protected and dry while the wound heals.
Because of this, the function of wound dressing varies a lot too. The most important element of wound dressing is choosing the right materials, the right type of dressing, and the best wound dressing management process. Find out which dressings are best for which wounds in our article Types of Wound Dressings and how to use them in our Complete Guide to Wound Dressing.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Wound Dressing
Advantages and disadvantages of wound dressings depend highly on what type of dressing is used. Here are some examples of the advantages and disadvantages of different types of wound dressings.
| Dressing Type | Advantages | Disadvantages |
|---|---|---|
| Foam and Padded Dressings | Highly absorbent. | Usually requires adhesive or bandage to hold against the body. |
| Gauze | Non-linting. | Can become saturated quickly. |
| Film/Polyurethane Dressings | Highly flexible. | Minimal padding and protection from impacts. |
| Hydrocolloid | Promotes autolytic debridement. | Gel formed from exudate can be mistaken for infection. |
| Hydrogel | Comfortable. | Limited absorbency capacity. |
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