Wound management amongst doctors in training: a cross‐sectional study of education and capability

Duffaydar, Hamza, Casals‐Farre, Octavi, Morgan, Jessica, Jones, Harri, Duffaydar, Hassan, Smith, Amy, Kimberly, Charles, Brock, James, Morgan‐Jones, Rhidian and Poacher, Arwel 2025. Wound management amongst doctors in training: a cross‐sectional study of education and capability. International Wound Journal 22 (5) , e70674. 10.1111/iwj.70674

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Abstract

Wound care in the UK is a resource‐intensive challenge, costing the NHS £8.3 billion annually and growing with an ageing population. However, there is no evidence of whether doctors in training receive adequate teaching to perform wound care competently. Our study aimed to investigate doctors’ confidence when assessing and managing wounds and their preferred learning modality. This cross‐sectional study comprised 262 doctors training across the UK. We assessed the correlation between confidence in managing wounds, seniority in training, and trainee speciality. Only 65% of doctors had received teaching on wound healing during medical school, and 25% received further teaching during postgraduate training. Surgical trainees felt more confident in assessing and managing wounds than their medical counterparts (p < 0.01), and surgeons were the only group demonstrating a positive correlation between seniority and confidence in wound management (p = 0.02). All speciality groups favoured bedside teaching and thought wound management was integral to clinical practice. Our study has shown that training is sub optimally delivered and insufficient for trainee requirements. Incorporating dedicated teaching across specialities will be essential to manage the increasing demand for wound care.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Schools > Biosciences
Additional Information:	License information from Publisher: LICENSE 1: URL: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Publisher:	Wiley
ISSN:	1742-4801
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	14 May 2025
Date of Acceptance:	4 April 2025
Last Modified:	14 May 2025 09:30
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/178271

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