Free BCEN Certified Emergency Nurse (CEN) Practice Question

The presentation of increasing pain, warmth, redness, and swelling around the wound site, combined with the patient's fever, are classic signs of a wound infection. These symptoms indicate that the body is responding to an infection likely caused by bacteria entering through the wound. The worsening of symptoms despite the passage of time since the injury further supports the diagnosis of an infection, not merely an inflammatory response to the injury itself.