Moisturizers, Emollients, or Barrier Preparations for the Prevention of Pressure Injury: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Significance: Pressure injuries are prevalent, yet preventable global health care problem estimated to affect 14% of hospital patients and up to 46% of aged care residents. One common prevention strategy is improving skin integrity through emollient therapy to optimize hydration and avoid skin breakdown. Therefore, this study aimed to review the literature and determine effectiveness of inert emollients, moisturizers, and barrier preparations compared with standard care, to prevent pressure injury in aged care or hospital settings. Recent Advances: Search terms were derived with database searches, including ProQuest, Cumulative Index of Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), Medline, Science Direct, Scopus, and the Cochrane library. The Robins1 and Risk of Bias 2 (Rob2) quality appraisal tools were used. A meta-analysis of the effects of interventions was conducted (random effects). Four studies met the inclusion criteria, with heterogeneous quality. Pooling of nonrandomized studies found that the application of emollients, moisturizers or barrier preparations did not significantly reduce incidence of pressure injury compared with standard care (relative risk 0.50, 95% confidence interval: 0.15–1.63, Z = 1.15, p = 0.25). Critical Issues: This review suggests that the use of inert moisturizers, emollients, or barrier preparations for preventing pressure injuries was not effective to prevent pressure injury in aged care or hospital settings. However, there was a distinct lack of randomized controlled trials (RCTs), with only one meeting the inclusion criteria. Furthermore, most of the included studies did not report on the frequency of application of the product, making it difficult to determine if application was in line with current international guidelines. One included study, which utilized a combination of neutral body wash and emollient demonstrated a significant reduction in the development of stage one and two pressure injuries. This combination of care may further support skin integrity and should be further examined in future trials. Future Directions: Future studies should ideally be RCTs, which control for skin cleansing, and implement an inert moisturizer emollient or barrier preparation as part of a pressure injury reduction bundle of care. Standardization of the application of the product, the volume of product applied at each application, and the quality of the product should also be considered.