VALIDITY OF WOUND SURFACE AREA MEASUREMENT METHODS

ABSTRACT An assessment of wound surface areas requires an instrument that is practical, and its results need to be consistent with instruments whose validity has been accepted.  The present descriptive study aimed at investigating the validity of wound surface area measurement methods by placing a transparency on the wound surface area and scanning it as a computer image file before calculating its size using the Adobe Photoshop CS3 extended program and the Image J  program. A wound measurement device called the Visitrak TM was used as a validated tool.  In this study, the subjects were open wounds of patients who were treated at Ramathibodi Hospital between June to September 2012, totaling 30 wounds. The differences of wound areas measured from the Visitrak TM and the Adobe Photoshop CS3 extended program and the Image J program were analyzed by percentage. The wound surface areas measured from the three methods were compared using Friedman’s test and Wilcoxson signed-ranks test with Bonferroni correction applied statistic. The finding showed that the size of wound surface areas measured with the Adobe Photoshop CS3 extended program and with the Image J program were 0.37% and 2.50% larger respectively than the Visitrak TM .  The wound sized measured with the Adobe Photoshop CS3 extended program and with the Visitrak TM were not significantly different (p > .05).  While the size of wound surface areas measured with the Image J program was significantly different from those measured with the Visitrak TM and with the Adobe Photoshop CS3 extended program at p-value less than .05 equally. The Adobe Photoshop CS3 extended program was valid when it was used to calculate the wound surface areas. The program was easy and convenient to use. So it should be used in a clinical setting after the users have undergone necessary training. The pixels should be examined and compared to the known actual size of wound surface area or a geometric shape.