Complications and review of skin tears

Monitor carefully for infection of the skin tear and loss of skin flap viability. As an acute wound, significant improvement is expected within 7 to 14 days. If healing is not progressing as expected, seek specialist advice for further assessment. Always identify and address the factors affecting wound healing and consider referral for management of comorbidities.

Skin tear management can be complicated by:

• patient interference with the dressing
• injury during dressing changes.

Avoid unnecessarily frequent dressing changes because this can cause pain, disrupt healing, inconvenience the patient, and be expensive.

Other complications related to a skin tear include:

• maceration of the surrounding skin
• persistent bleeding
• conversion into a chronic ulcer.