Nurse practitioners have been trained to keep their own reception so that the doctors can utilize their working hours more efficiently. The nurse practitioners keep the reception in the reception area where they can take care of patients who don’t necessarily need an appointment with the doctor. Their duties also include treating and closing acute wounds, as well as controlling patients’ follow-up care.

This thesis was made in co-operation with the management and staff of emergency unit in Oulu region. The aim of the thesis was to research how well the wounds that had been closed by the nurse practitioners would heal. We also wanted to gather information about the patient satisfaction level on wound follow-up care. The aim was also to obtain information that would improve the reception of the patients with open wounds. Related research on the subject has not previously been carried out by the Oulu region emergency unit.

The theoretical framework of the thesis focuses on nurse practitioners, wound closure, aseptic technique in the treatment of the wound, wound healing and patient education. The theoretical framework was aggregated on literature related to the field, as well as several other sources. This thesis is a quantitative study and the data was collected from patients by a questionnaire. Patients received envelopes with survey forms from the nurses at the reception. The data was analyzed using the SPSS software, and the tables and charts were made with Excel program.

Based on the results of our research, we can conclude that the closed wounds healed well without complications. Patients are also generally satisfied with the nurse practitioners reception, the patient education and the follow-up care of the wound. A further study could be carried out on a larger scale. It is also possible to study the differences between wounds sutured by the doctors and the wounds sutured by the practitioner nurses.