Introduction:

Malignant tumor wounds represent anguish for patients confronting terminal illness, as these are disfiguring lesions, with no possibility of healing and which develop symptoms that are difficult to control. The aim of this study was to verify nurses’ knowledge and practices in caring for patients with malignant tumor wounds.

Materials and Methods:

This was a quantitative, descriptive exploratory study carried out with 22 nurses from a hospital in Paraíba, Brazil, during April to June 2016. The instrument was a structured questionnaire based on the protocol by the Ministry of Health. Data analysis used descriptive statistics and relevant literature.

Results:

The results permitted identifying that nurses have gaps in content knowledge and techniques to evaluate and treat patients with neoplastic wounds. In addition, it was found that nurses do not perform some pertinent care to those patients.

Discussion:

It is believed that these fragilities are related to personnel size, knowledge deficits, inability to perform care with malignant tumor wounds, lack of inputs that aid in the evaluation and treatment of the lesion, and lack of institutional protocol to care with these lesions.

Conclusions:

Thus, the institution's locus of research needs to invest in permanent education to train the nursing staff to monitor patients with malignant tumor wounds, acquire necessary materials, and implement care protocols that guide the practice of assessment and therapeutic methods for caring for people with these injuries, family members, and caregivers.

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