Prevalence of Burn Injury, Patterns, and its Associated Factors among Burn Patients attending Yekatit 12 Hospital Medical College and AaBET Hospitals. A Two-year Retrospective study
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Date
2026-01-21
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Background: Burn is an injury to the surface layers of the body caused by agents such as fire,
scald, electricity, chemicals, sunlight, or nuclear radiation. Burn injuries remain a major health
concern, especially in low-resource settings with high morbidity and mortality rates.
Comprehensive burn patterns and epidemiology data in developing countries like Ethiopia are
limited. Thus, this study reflects the recent patterns of burn injuries at Yekatit 12 Hospital Medical
College and Addis Ababa Burn, Emergency, and Trauma hospitals in Addis Ababa.
Objective: To evaluate the prevalence, patterns, and associated factors of burn injury among burn
inpatients admitted at Addis Ababa Burn, Emergency, and Trauma hospital and Yekatit 12
Hospital Medical College from April 1st, 2023, to March 31st, 2025.
Method: A hospital-based retrospective cross-sectional study was conducted using a stratified
sampling technique. Data was gathered using a systematic checklist that was taken from the
national burn patient medical record formats. EpiData version 3.1 was used to enter the data,
while SPSS version 27 was used for analysis. The factors linked to burn injuries were described
using logistic regressions, chi-square tests, and descriptive statistics. The results were
represented using the Crude Odds Ratio (COR) and Adjusted Odds Ratio (AOR) with a 95%
confidence interval (CI)
Results: Among trauma patients, the prevalence of burn injuries was 15.92%, with 45.3% being
hospitalized. Most patients were aged<15 years (55.5%) and male (54.7%). Hot fluids/Scald
(56.9%) and flame (21.9%) burns were the commonest causes, frequently affecting the upper
extremities (60%). Second-degree burns (60.6%) and injuries involving <10% total body surface
area (48.2%) were the most common clinical findings. By Multivariate regression analysis, burn
depth (AOR=0.011 for second-degree, p<0.032) and total burned body surface area (AOR≈0 for
<30%, p<0.0001) were identified as significant predictors of complications. Among 137 burn
patients, 73% discharged without complications, while 14.6% had scar of contracture, 8%
disability, and 4.4% mortality.
Conclusion: Burn injuries unevenly affect children and are mostly caused by preventable
household incidents. The extent and depth of burns significantly predict the severity of
complications, indicating the need for targeted prevention programs and enhanced care capacity.
These results recommend improved burn care protocols and public education to decrease the
burden of burn-related morbidity.
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Keywords
Burn injuries, prevalence, associated factors, Ethiopia