The importance of nutritional support in the treatment of wounds.

This bachelor thesis is devoted to the importance of nutrition support for therapy of wounds. Today the importance of nutrition support is generally known in all branches of medicine. Due to malnutrition bad healing of wounds occurs. From this reason each nurse should be aware of the importance of proper and balanced nutrition together with proper care of healed wounds. Proper nutrition protects people against infections, facilitates the process of healing and improves therapeutic results. The theoretical part is engaged in the importance of nutrition support, malnutrition, nutrition team, peroral support, and enteral and parenteral nutrition. It further deals with acute and chronic wounds, phases of healing, factors influencing healing, and nursing care of wounds. Two targets were set within the research. The first target was to monitor the knowledge of the importance of nutrition support for healing of wounds nurses have. The other target was to find out whether nurses have active attitude towards the questions of nutrition support when healing wounds. The empirical part uses the method of quantitative research survey together with the method of data collection using a non-standardised questionnaire. The research group consisted of nurses working on shifts and charge nurses working in internal medicine wards, surgical wards and after-care wards in the Jindřichův Hradec Hospital a.s and the České Budějovice Hospital a.s. The questionnaire consisting of 31 questions was filled in by 126 nurses. Processing of the survey was carried out using Microsoft Office Excel 2007. The questionnaire is stated in Annex No.2. Three hypotheses were assessed on the basis of the targets. H1: Nurses are aware of the importance of nutrition support for healing wounds. H2: Nutrition support is provided to patients on the basis of nutrition screening. H3: Nutrition support records are made by charge nurses