Skin Integrity & Wound Care questions and answers

Skin Integrity & Wound Care questions and answers The nurse determines that the client's wound may be infected. To perform an aerobic wound culture, the nurse should: 1. Collect the superficial drainage 2. Collect the culture before cleansing the wound 3. Obtain a culturette tube and use sterile technique 4. Use the same technique as for collecting an anaerobic culture - ANS: 3 The nurse uses different methods of specimen collection for aerobic or anaerobic organisms. To collect an aerobic wound culture, the nurse uses a sterile swab from a culturette tube and sterile technique. The nurse never collects a wound culture sample from old or superficial drainage. Resident colonies of bacteria from the skin grow in superficial drainage and may not be the true causative organisms of a wound infection. The nurse should clean a wound first with normal saline to remove skin flora before obtaining the culture.