A number of University of Malta researchers from the Faculty of Health Sciences believe that Diabetes Wound Classifications can largely improve communication between different professionals, and also consequently improve the ease of discussions regarding potential outcomes with regards to prognosis of diabetic ulcerations.
In this respect, a non-experimental comparative study was conducted on the inter-reliability of widely-used validated diabetic foot ulcer classification systems.
Prof. Cynthia Formosa, Dr Alfred Gatt and Ms Annelise Camilleri set out to determine this inter-reliability by enrolling 40 patients with diabetes who presented new or long-standing ulcerations. During the patients’ routine clinical visits, each ulcer was then graded/scored by three clinicians using the four classification systems, namely the University of Texas, SINBAD, Meggitt-Wagner and PEDIS.
Whilst the study reported a satisfactory inter-reliability between the clinicians in the evaluation process, the strength of the agreement varied between the different classifications. Therefore, the systems may be used reliably by different clinicians with different levels of experiences.
The journal documenting this study may be accessed online.