Adult burn injuries in an Emergency Department in Central Anatolia, Turkey: a 5-year analysis
Introduction
Burn injuries cause multifaceted problems for societies throughout the world. The best strategies for minimizing the burn-related damage are to take preventive measures and in the case of injury, to realize rapid and effective treatment [1], [2], [3]. Emergency Departments can play vital roles in the treatment of both moderate to major and minor injuries and may significantly affect final outcome because almost all burn patients are initially treated in these departments [4]. Our university hospital is located in Kayseri, a city almost at the center of Turkey. It serves patients from Kayseri and six neighboring cities with a total population of approximately 2 million people. There is a seven-bed Burn Unit at the Department of Plastic Surgery. There are university hospitals in two of the six neighboring cities but these do not have specialized Burn Units. In order to take preventive measures and organize rapid and effective treatment of burns, epidemiological data should be collected [2], [5], [6], [7]. The aim of this study is to investigate the epidemiological and clinical characteristics of the adult burn patients admitted to our department and to determine the frequency of the patients who were treated on an outpatient basis.
Section snippets
Patients and methods
The charts of the patients admitted to our Emergency Department between 1 January 1996 and 31 December 2000 were reviewed, retrospectively. This study included adult patients only (older than 16). A total of 314 charts were collected. At our institution, patients are hospitalized if they have burns classified as moderate or major according to Grading System for Burn Severity and Disposition of the American Burn Association [8]. Data on the following were compiled: age, gender, etiology (cause
Results
Of the 314 patients, 201 (64%) were men and 113 (36%) were women. Mean age was 32.9±14.7. Two hundred and fifteen (68%) had minor and 99 (32%) had moderate to major burns. The highest and lowest numbers of patients were in the 21–30 and the 51–60 age groups, respectively (Fig. 1).
Discussion
Our results show that among adult patients, the number of men was higher than those of women (1.8:1). This is similar to the situation in other countries [5], [7], [9], [10], [11], [12], [13]. In our study, almost all work-related burns, half of the domestic accidents, and almost all traffic-related burns were seen in men. Men are more likely to be exposed to work-related burns due to kind of works (i.e. manual trade workers, laborers). Stoves are used for heating in many houses and kerosene is
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