Background Pressure ulcers is a common phenomenon in health care. Most nurses meet people who suffers from pressure wounds in their work life. Patient’s experiences are complex. It’s important for health care professionals to understand what it feels like and have the knowledge about the impact that pressure ulcers have on the patient’s daily life.

Aim To describe patient’s experience of living with a pressure ulcer.

Method The used method was a literature study based on qualitative articles. Ten scientific articles was selected, read, studied and analyzed according to Friberg’s (2006) analyzing model.

Results The results contains four themes:" to live with constant pain", "changing processes", "loss of independence" and "to accept the life situation". Within these four themes 13 subthemes were created.

Conclusion Pain experience means great suffering for the patient. Analgesics were found to not always be effective. Emotional changes injured person's self-image. Physical and mental limitations caused problems in daily life. In order to handle their situation, the patient needed more information about the healing process of the wound.

Keywords Experience, pressure ulcer, qualitative analysis, quality of life, wound care.