Introduction: Pressure ulcers (PUs) occur frequently in hospitalized, community-dwelling and nursing home older adults, and serious problems that can lead to sepsis or death. Pressure ulcers are additional co-morbid threat / conditions encountered in hospitalized patients or those requiring long-term institutional care.

Objective: To assess prevalence and associated factors of pressure ulcer among hospitalized adults at Debre Markos referral hospital, East Gojjam Zone, Ethiopia, 2016.

Method:  Institution- based, cross-sectional quantitative study design was conducted on a representative sample of 236 hospitalized adults in the study area from February 15/2016 to April 15/2016. Statistical software, Epi data version 3.1 and SPSS version 23 were used. Univariate, Bivariate and Multivariate logistic regression models were used identifying the association; degree of association was interpreted by using ORs with 95% confidence intervals and P-value <0.05 was considered statistically significant with the outcome variable.

Result: A total of 8 pressure ulcer was detected from 236 patients, with the prevalence rate of 3.4%. Majority of respondents 3.0% developed pressure ulcer came from the rural area and 1.3 %( 3) patients developed ulcer was not educated.

Participants who had constantly moist skin were 3.2 times [95% CI: AOR, 3.202[2.050 -16.067] more risk to develop pressure ulcer than rarely moist skin in moisture, and participants who had been very poor in nutrition were 4.9 times [95% CI: AOR, 4.9(3.837 - 23.326)] at higher risk to develop pressure ulcer than adequate in nutrition.

Conclusion and Recommendation: The prevalence of pressure ulcer was slightly high among hospitalized adult patients.  They developed pressure ulcer at factors such as bed ridden, moist skin, inadequate in nutrition and who had not got frequent position change service. Therefore, frequent position change service and Braden scale PU risk assessment tool should be applied to prevent & reduce the prevalence of pressure ulcer.

Keywords: Pressure ulcer, prevalence & Associated factors.

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