Objective:

Identify nursing care performed by nurses to evaluate, prevent, and treat cutaneous xerosis in the elderly.

Materials and Methods:

Descriptive study with quantitative approach, conducted with 101 care nurses working in the medical clinic and in the intensive care units of four hospitals in Paraíba, Brazil. The data collection took place between July and September 2018 through an instrument composed of sociodemographic variables and by items related with nursing care. The statistical analysis was performed by distribution and frequency calculations, central tendency measures, standard deviation, and chi-squared test for categorical variables.

Results:

The majority stated always considering the age range (84.2 %), assessing skin color (83.2 %), evaluating skin turgor and elasticity (64.4 %), looking for the existence of skin fissures (53.5 %), and noticing the existence of lesions on the skin (90.1 %). Of the participating professionals, 83.2 % reported never having used imported equipment to evaluate skin hydration.

Conclusions:

The study showed that nurses emphasized the importance of considering age range, assessing skin color, being aware of areas with hyperemia, and noticing the existence of lesions, as well as the need for continuing education to improve the quality of care.

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