RETROSPECTIVE STUDY ON PATTERN OF BURN ADMISSIONS: CAUSE, TYPES, CLINICAL PRESENTATION AND THEIR MANAGEMENT OUTCOME

Abstract

ABSTRACT Background A burn is an injury to the skin or other organic tissue primarily caused by heat or due to radiation, radioactivity, electricity, friction or contact with chemicals. Burn injuries are a serious global public health problem, burn account for an estimated 180 000 deaths annually. The majority of these occur in low- and middle-income countries and almost two thirds occur in Africa and South-East Asia regions. (1) Objective To determine the magnitude, cause, types, clinical presentation, and management of burn injury among patients admitted in Addis Ababa Burn, Emergency and trauma center. Methods The study was conducted in AaBET hospital - SPHMMC department of Surgery from the period of August 1 2016 to January 31 2018. Aretrospective record review study design was employed to assess the magnitude, cause, types, clinical presentation and management outcome of burn injuries. The collected data was cleaned, checked for completeness, coded and analyzed using SPSS. Chi-square test will be employed to determine relationship of different factors. Result The prevalence of burn injury in this study is 3.1%. The female to male ratio was 1.2:1. The highest proportion of admission was comprising by patients from age1 to 9 years of age which 36.8 % from the total admission. The minimum age at admission was 2 month and maximum were 62 years. The most common cause of burn was scald which account 41.8%. The overall median TBSA% was 12%. Home is the most common place of burn injury which accounts 80.5 % of all burn injuries. Comorbid illness was found in 13% of our patients of which 62.5% patients had epilepsy. Wound infection is the most common complication which occurs in 7.6% of the patients. In this study debridement was the most commonly performed surgery it was done in 86 patients. The overall mortality was 5.9%. Post burn disability was seen in 8.6% of patients. Conclusion Children less than 9 years of age had the highest proportion of patients. This may be due to their poorly developed motor skill and their poor understanding of harmful things. Health education should begiven for parents and caretakers about prevention of this injury. Key word: AaBET, SPHMMC,TBSA%, Burn complication, Scald