Challenging the ritualistic practice of incision and drainage V01.2
Research type
Research Study
Full title
The experiences and opinions of patients and professionals in the practice of incision and drainage in purulent skin and soft tissue infections.
IRAS ID
324054
Contact name
Liam Stout
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Salford
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 3 months, 1 days
Research summary
The treatment and management of a purulent skin or soft tissue abscesses (SSTI) almost exclusively results in people needing to be put to sleep (general anaesthetic), having their abscess painfully cut into with a scalpel (incision and drainage), overnight hospital stay and an intensive regime of wound packing after the procedure.
The idea driving this research is that the surgical familiarity with incision and drainage has blinded nurses, clinicians, and institutions to the technique’s progressive failure. The once successful outcomes of incision and drainage in achieving control of the infective process of an abscess is now declining, likely, because of the epidemic rise of community acquired methicillin resistant staphylococcus aureus (CA-MRSA). Over the last decade, there has been a recognition that the incision and drainage alone is no longer sufficient in the treatment of abscesses. And yet, the technique remains at the forefront of a surgeon’s treatment preference in this condition, almost universally sustained by the clinical community. Furthermore, when one considers beyond the initial outcome of infective source control that incision and drainage achieves, there is speculation surrounding a vastly unrecognised undertow of wider indirect failures relative to the patients, the clinicians, the nurses, and the National Health Service (NHS).
This doctoral study will explore and analyse why the incision and drainage technique persists in contemporary surgical practice, how this affects the patient and clinical groups tangled within abscesses and their management, are alternative practices available and if so, why have they not been adopted?
A focus group methodology will be used to gain qualitative insights from the target populations affected by SSTI’s. The evidence generated will be used in the progressive design and development of a novel, minimally invasive SSTI treatment device, utilising suction as an alternative method of treatment, also known as negative pressure therapy (NPT).REC name
West Midlands - Coventry & Warwickshire Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
23/WM/0023
Date of REC Opinion
8 Mar 2023
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion