District nurses' knowledge and practice of wound assessment: 1.

Nurses are expected to implement knowledge gained through research into their practice to ensure the delivery of high quality and effective care. As district nurses spend a significant proportion of their time on wound care, a sound knowledge base is essential. The first part of this two-part article reports a study that examined the wound assessment practices of 20 district nurses in one healthcare trust. The most common method of assessing wounds was found to be a combination of observation and experience. Assessment using observation or experience without documentation may be subjective, variable between practitioners and unreliable or inaccurate. The second part of this article, to be published in the next issue, will describe the subsequent establishment of a forum to develop a research-based wound assessment tool.