Wound Care in Community Pharmacy: Practical Guidance for Frontline Teams

Most people will experience a wound at some point, and many will seek advice at the pharmacy counter. Although minor cuts and abrasions often heal with basic care, some wounds become chronic or complicated. Community pharmacists and technicians need to be able to guide appropriate self-care, identify red flags, and refer patients when necessary.

Understanding Wound Healing

Wound healing begins immediately after injury and progresses through 4 overlapping phases: hemostasis, inflammation, proliferation, and remodeling.¹ Acute wounds typically follow this predictable process and heal within about 3 weeks.² In contrast, chronic wounds stall—often in the inflammatory phase—and fail to progress toward closure.²

Wounds are classified by depth (superficial to full-thickness), acuity (acute vs chronic), and healing stage.³ Chronic wounds are defined more by characteristics (eg, stalled healing, necrosis, persistent inflammation) than by duration alone.⁴

Initial Wound Care: What to Recommend

For most minor acute wounds, effective care includes 4 steps, described in Table 1.^5,6

Choosing the Right Dressing

A simple framework helps pharmacy teams recommend dressings from the growing number of over-the-counter products⁷:

• Dry wound (scabbed-over minor cuts or abrasions, late-stage surgical incisions): add moisture (eg, hydrogels)
• Exudative wound (infected cuts or abrasions, burns, and venous leg ulcers): absorb drainage (eg, foams, alginates)
• Necrotic wound (any wound that has yellow, gray, or greenish dead tissue): refer for debridement
• Infected wound (red, warm, swollen, pus-covered, or malodorous): consider antimicrobial dressing and refer if needed. Not all wounds require antibiotics. Mild contamination is typical, and topical antibiotics are often unnecessary. Instead, simple options like petrolatum or nonadherent dressings are effective for many minor wounds.

Modern dressings (eg, foams, hydrocolloids, alginates) generally outperform traditional gauze by maintaining moisture, reducing pain, and requiring fewer changes.^6,8,9 Silicone-backed foam dressings are particularly useful for fragile skin and skin tears due to their atraumatic removal.^6,8,9 Pharmacists should counsel patients to leave dressings in place as long as the dressing is clean and intact.⁶ Patients should change dressings based on drainage, not a fixed schedule. Further, patients and caregivers need to be gentle to minimize trauma during removal.⁶ Pain can impair healing, so pharmacists can suggest the patient take analgesics 30 minutes before dressing changes when needed.¹⁰ The pharmacy team can also assess tetanus vaccination status and recommend boosters when indicated.¹¹

When to Refer

Recognizing when a wound requires medical evaluation is critical.^3,6,12 When patients have signs of infection, necrotic tissue, or significant drainage, odor, or bleeding, they need to see a prescriber. Wounds lasting more than 3 weeks or located on weight-bearing areas (eg, diabetic foot ulcers) need referral, and if the patient has an underlying condition (eg, diabetes, vascular disease, immunosuppression), it’s best to refer.^3,6,12 

Delayed healing is often multifactorial.^13-15 Key contributors include poor circulation or edema, infection or biofilm formation, and chronic diseases. Patients who are malnourished, smoke, or are stressed will often heal slowly. Concurrent use of corticosteroids, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDS), or chemotherapy will also slow healing. Pharmacists who identify medication-related barriers should recommend alternatives when appropriate (eg, acetaminophen instead of NSAIDs for pain).^13-15

Conclusion

Community pharmacy teams are often the first point of contact for wound care. By promoting evidence-based practices—especially moist wound healing, appropriate dressing selection, and timely referral—they can significantly improve outcomes and reduce complications.

REFERENCES

1. Cioce A, Cavani A, Cattani C, Scopelliti F. Role of the Skin Immune System in Wound Healing. Cells. 2024;13(7):624. Published 2024 Apr 4. doi:10.3390/cells130706242. Korting HC, Schöllmann C, White RJ. Management of minor acute cutaneous wounds: importance of wound healing in a moist environment. J Eur Acad Dermatol Venereol. 2011;25(2):130-137. doi: 10.1111/j.1468-3083.2010.03775.x.

3. Hamm RL. Anatomy and physiology of the integumentary system. In: Hamm RL, ed. Text and Atlas of Wound Diagnosis and Treatment, 2^nd edition. New York: McGraw-Hill Education; 2019; 3-13.

4. McDaniel JC, Browning KK. Smoking, chronic wound healing, and implications for evidence-based practice. J Wound Ostomy Continence Nurs. 2014;41(5):415-423. doi: 10.1097/WON.0000000000000057

5. Weir D, Brindle CT. Chapter 13: Wound dressings. In Hamm RL, ed. Text and Atlas of Wound Diagnosis and Treatment, 2nd edition. New York: McGraw-Hill Education; 2019; 297-316.

6. Bernard DB. Minor burns, sunburn, and wounds. In: Krinsky DL, Ferreri SP, Hemstreet B, et al, eds. Handbook of Nonprescription Drugs: An Interactive Approach to Self-Care. 19th ed. The American Pharmacists Association; 2018:771-791.

7. Sood A, Granick MS, Tomaselli NL. Wound dressings and comparative effectiveness data. Adv Wound Care (New Rochelle). 2014;3(8):511-529. doi:10.1089/wound.2012.0401.

8. Gist S, Tio-Matos I, Falzgraf S, Cameron S, Beebe M. Wound care in the geriatric client. Clin Intervent Aging. 2009;4:269-287.

9. Dhivya S, Padma VV, Santhini E. Wound dressings—a review. BioMedicine (Taipei). 2015;5(4):22. doi: 10.7603/s40681-015-0022-9.

10. Weir D, Brindle CT. Chapter 13: Wound dressings. In Hamm RL, ed. Text and Atlas of Wound Diagnosis and Treatment, 2^nd edition. New York: McGraw-Hill Education; 2019; 297-316.

11. Tetanus. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Accessed April 15, 2026. https://www.cdc.gov/tetanus/index.html

12. Sigman M, Ochoa C, Rowe VL. Chapter 4: Vascular wounds. In Hamm RL, ed. Text and Atlas of Wound Diagnosis and Treatment. New York: McGraw-Hill Education; 2020; 99-141.

13. Beyene RT, Derryberry SL Jr, Barbul A. The Effect of Comorbidities on Wound Healing. Surg Clin North Am. 2020;100(4):695-705. doi:10.1016/j.suc.2020.05.002

14. Rogiński M, Liebert A, Krupiniewicz K, Korczak J, Wojciechowicz M/The Impact of Malnutrition on the Wound Healing Process: A Summary of Current Knowledge. Quality in Sport. 2026;50:68066. https://doi.org/10.12775/QS.2026.50.68066

15. Hom DB, Davis ME. Reducing Risks for Poor Surgical Wound Healing. Facial Plast Surg Clin North Am. 2023;31(2):171-181. doi:10.1016/j.fsc.2023.01.002