The uptake of the international pressure ulcer/injury prevention and treatment guidelines in the scientific literature: A systematic analysis of two major citation databases

The European Pressure Ulcer Advisory Panel, the National Pressure Injury Advisory Panel and the Pan Pacific Pressure Injury Alliance developed international Clinical Practice Guidelines of the prevention and treatment of pressure ulcers/injuries in 2009, 2014, and 2019. Despite substantial dissemination efforts, evidence about guideline dissemination and uptake in the international literature is lacking.The aim of this review was to capture to the greatest detail possible the number of the citations of the three published Clinical Practice Guidelines.The citation databases Web of Science and Scopus were searched for citations of the 2009, 2014 and 2019 Clinical Practice Guidelines including all derivative products including short versions and translations. Two separate search strategies were iteratively developed to ensure highest sensitivity.The Cited Reference Search in Web of Science identified hundreds of different referencing formats with more than 2000 citing articles. The Scopus search revealed 250 different reference formats and more than 2000 citation counts. After publication there was a gradual increase of citations that peaks approximately after four years.The three Clinical Practice Guidelines including all derivate versions had a substantial uptake in the scientific literature. This supports the assumption that the guideline dissemination strategies were and are successful.