Best practice recommendations for silver wound dressings: Results of an expert survey aiming to reach a consensus

Acute and chronic wounds with signs of local infection or critical colonisation pose an interdisciplinary and interprofessional challenge in the fields of medicine. A national best practice recommendation for the use of silver dressings does not yet exist.

Therefore, it was the aim of this project to develop a collection of best practice statements on the basis of a structured survey. Overall, 49 statements were developed and presented to wound experts with the aim to find a consensus. For 29 statements an agreement rate of 75% or more was achieved.

Thus, for the first time a consensus-based collection of best practice statements for the use of silver dressings in the local antimicrobial therapy of wounds is available.