Mensuração de área de úlceras venosas por meio dos Softwares Autocad® e Image Tool: reprodutibilidade de métodos

Abstract

The wounds measurement is an important factor in the evaluation healing because it provides parameters that indicate the progress of wound healing. The objective is to compare the area measured of venous ulcers through AutoCAD® and Image Tool software. The assessment of wound measurement methods is constituted as a gap in the knowledge produced by Brazilian nursing and as one of the fundamental aspects of the wounds evaluation. It is an evaluative analysis of reproducibility tests with a quantitative approach. The study included patients with venous ulcers treated at an outpatient clinic during the data collection period (March-July 2015), higher the age of 18 years with cognitive and verbal skills preserved, which had ulcers covering one side of the lower limb (n=21). For the data collection procedure, nurses that participated of the Skin Injury Study Group were contributors of research, being called evaluators. Each patient had his ulcer photographed by the researcher and by an evaluator with Cam Fujufilm Finepix S 14 Mega pixels. The photographs were transferred to the personal researcher's notebook, both the evaluator and the researcher carried out the measurements of the two photographs, with the two softwares. For the analysis of data mean and standard error, Wilcoxon test, intraclass correlation coefficient and concordance correlation coefficient were used, in addition to Bland and Altman procedure. The ethical precepts were based on Resolution No. 466/2012. 21 individuals participated in the study, who presented a total of 36 venous ulcers (72 photos). The average age of participants was 60.9, the majority of subjects were male, had one venous ulcer, with 3,0 years median time of existence of injury. The size of the ulcers had great amplitude. There was difference between the measurements of the researcher and the evaluators in AutoCAD® software, with no difference in the Image tool. However, the values of the correlation coefficients were strong in both cases. There was no significant difference between the measurements in both softwares, there is strong intraclass correlation and agreement between both, which seem to be more accurate in measuring wounds with an area> 10 cm². Measurements in AutoCAD and Image Tool softwares feature intraclass correlation and strong concordance, so they are reproducible. Still they appears to be more accurate when used to measure wound area> 10 cm². Therefore, the use of both is suitable for the measurement of venous ulcers with an area> 10 cm².