Five years of experience in a burn care unit: Analysis of burn injuries in 667 patients

INTRODUCTION: The aim of the study was to evaluate retrospectively the burn injuries referred from our city region to our burn care unit. METHODS: 667 patients were admitted and hospitalised between Apri 2013- December 2018 to Burn Care Unit. All data including age, gender, burning etiology, total burning area of patient, stay of hospital time and period, microbiologic culture results of burning, surgical operations and mortality were recorded and analysed statistically. RESULTS: Mean age of patients was 15.2 years (0-86 years). The burn trauma was found the most frequently in 0-12 pediatric age group (421 cases, 63.1 %) and this group was followed by 19-59 age group (184 cases, 27.5 %) as second most frequently. 398 patients (59.7%) were male and 269 (40.3%) were female. The most and second frequent etiologic factors in this study were scolding (438 patients, 65.6%) and flame burning (109 patients, 16.3%) respectively. While scolding was the most frequent reason (83.8%) in pediatric age group, flame burning was found most frequently (34.7%) in adult age group. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: With these results we think that more educations and preventive measures of burning especially for children needs to be taken in our region. It was found that most of burning traumas can be prevent with home accident educations, simple preventive home measures and occupational safety measures. Consequently, physical and psychological morbidities, mortalities and burden financial loss can be minimized.