COMPARATIVE STUDY OF EFFECTIVENESS OF WOUND CLEANSING SOLUTION IN DIABETIC WOUND CARE

. Wound cleansing for diabetic wound care always used 0.9% of NaCl or other commercial solutions. Currently, the use of guavas leaves extract (Psidium guajava L) as an alternative wound cleansing solution has been started to be introduced as a part of complementary nursing. The aim of this study was to compare the effectiveness of commercially wound cleansing solution of 0.9% NaCl and guavas leaves extract in wound healing process of diabetes mellitus patients. Methods. This study used six respondents as a sample, by using quasi experiment methods of 4 times wound cleansing.  In this experiment, the control group used NaCl 0.9% while a group of sample used guavas leaves extract as wound cleansing solutions. Result. The experimental result revealed that there was a significant result between types of wound cleansing solution effectiveness in NaCl 0.9% with an extract guavas leaves for some wound characteristics (Presentation of wound slough P value: 0.043; presentation of wound granulation Pvalue: 0.037 (α=0.05)). However, There were no significant result of effectiveness comparison between wound cleansing solution (NaCl 0.9% and Guavas Leaves Extract) for wound dimension and epithelial tissue characteristics (Wound wide Pvalue:0.184; wound long Pvalue: 0.361; epithelial tissue presentation Pvalue:0.072 (α=0.05). Discussion. These results confirmed that guava leaves extract can serve as an alternative wound cleansing solution as commercial wound cleansing solution such as 0.9% NaCl. Keywords: Guavas leaves extract, Diabetes mellitus, wound care, wound cleansing solution