Background: Parafricta bootees are made of low friction material intended to prevent heel pressure ulcers (PU). Aims: To compare, in hospitalised patients, whether the bootees, added to standard care (SC), prevent heel PU compared with SC alone. Methods: Patients with Waterlow score ≥20 and no heel PUs at baseline were randomly allocated to either bootees plus SC, or SC alone. Target sample size was 450 patients. Patients’ heels were clinically assessed for heel PUs at day 3 and day 14. Results: Slow recruitment stopped the study early. In 31 recruited patients there were zero incident heel PUs (intervention group, 0%) versus 1 (SC group, 6%) at day 3 and no new heel pressure ulcers at Day 14. Conclusion: This study failed to reach sufficient statistical power to assess the efficacy of the bootees in preventing heel PUs. No adverse events were related to the bootees. Only 1 patient in the SC group developed a heel PU.
