Description of patients admitted to a burn unit of Yekatit 12 Hosptial, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Objectives: The over all aim of the study is to describe the characteristics of patients with burn injuries admitted Yekatit 12 Hospital, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Methods: The design of the study is a cross-sectional type. The data was collected prospectively. All the 121 burn patients admitted to Yekatit Hospital, from July 2001 to September 2002 were included in this study.
Results: In the study, the median age was 22 years (range 2 months to 70 years). Among them 64.5% were female and 35.5% were male. Scald was a common cause of burns for young children and flame was a common cause for adults. The frequent mechanism of burn injury for adults was exploding kerosene stove. The average mean total body surface area (TBSA) burnt was 17.1 %. The over all median hospital stay was 44 days. Most of the adults (74.7%) had delayed split thickness grafting. The mortality was 11.6%. This study showed that burn is an important health problem in the country, and it is also burden on the existing poor health care system in our setup.
Conclusion: Even though this study may not show the true picture of burn patients seen in the country, it can represent the clinical picture of patients seen in most hospitals. To have a clear picture of burns in the population a community based epidemiological study should be done.