Risk Assessment and Prevention of Pressure Ulcers: A Clinical Practice Guideline From the American College of Physicians

oped this guideline to present the evidence and provide clinical recommendations based on the comparative effectiveness of risk assessment scales and preventive interventions for pressure ulcers. Methods: This guideline is based on published literature on this topic that was identified by using MEDLINE (1946 through Feb-ruary 2014), CINAHL (1998 through February 2014), the Co-chrane Library, clinical trials registries, and reference lists. Searches were limited to English-language publications. The outcomes evaluated for this guideline include pressure ulcer in-cidence and severity, resource use, diagnostic accuracy, mea-sures of risk, and harms. This guideline grades the quality of evidence and strength of recommendations by using ACP's clin-ical practice guidelines grading system. The target audience for this guideline includes all clinicians, and the target patient pop-ulation is patients at risk for pressure ulcers. Recommendation 1: ACP recommends that clinicians should perform a risk assessment to identify patients who are at risk of developing pressure ulcers. (Grade: weak recommendation, low-quality evidence) Recommendation 2: ACP recommends that clinicians should choose advanced static mattresses or advanced static over-lays in patients who are at an increased risk of developing pres-sure ulcers. (Grade: strong recommendation, moderate-quality evidence) Recommendation 3: ACP recommends against using alternating-air mattresses or alternating-air overlays in patients who are at an increased risk of developing pressure ulcers. (Grade: weak recommendation, moderate-quality evidence