How to deal with this?

[colorsofthewind]

Hello, what would you include in an incident report if no one witnessed a resident's skin tear and resident can't tell you how, yet your told you have to give a detailed reason for skin tear?

[mvm2]

I'd explain in detail everything you did to try to find out what happened but that there just is no confirmed reason for it.

[Swellz]

I'd explain in detail everything you did to try to find out what happened but that there just is no confirmed reason for it.

Ditto. You can't make up a reason, you can only document what you know.

[Here.I.Stand, BSN, RN]

You state that it was unwitnessed, and resident unable to tell how it happened. Like swellz said, you can't make something up

[MunoRN, RN]

If you really aren't allowed to submit an incident report without listing the specific cause of a skin tear, then I would write an incident report about how you were unable to complete an incident report on a skin tear because the cause of the tear was unknown. (I know that sounds sarcastic but that's really what I would normally do).