A Randomized Controlled Trial Comparing Collagen Sheet Dressing with Vaseline Gauze Dressing in Assessing Pain in Split Thickness Skin Graft Donor Site

We report a randomized controlled clinical trial of 2 dressing materials, viz., Vaseline gauze and collagen sheet, after split thickness skin graft in donor site for wound comfort and pain, surgical site infection, and epithelialization. It is a randomized control study registered with CTRI registration number of CTRI/2 020/02/023207. Enrolled patients were randomized with block randomization method with 50 patients in each group. Following STSG procedure, pain score was documented using numerical pain rating score. Surgical site infection and number of days required for complete epithelialization were also documented and analyzed. The results showed that distribution of mean pain score (NPR) for Vaseline gauze group was significantly higher than collagen sheet group. Similarly, number of days required for complete epithelialization was found to be more for Vaseline gauze group than collagen sheet group and there was no significant difference in surgical site infection between the two groups. The study concluded that collagen sheet dressing is better than Vaseline gauze dressing in reducing pain in STSG donor site.