Magnitude, Clinical Presentation, and Outcome of Pediatric Burn Injuries at Yekatit 12 Hospital, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
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Date
2014-06
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Back ground: Burn injuries are a global public health problem, accounting for an estimated 195
000 deaths annually. The majority of these occur in low- and middle-income countries and the
rate of child deaths from burns is currently over seven times higher in low- and middle-income
countries than in high-income countries. Burn injuries are largely considered as being
preventable. However, one needs to know the patterns, causes and outcomes of burn injuries if
intervention measures are to be effective..
Objective: the aim of this study was to determine the magnitude, clinical presentation and
outcome of pediatric burn patients seen in Yekatit 12 hospital from January 2012 – January
2014.
Methodology: This study was conducted at Yekatit 12 hospital from December- June 2014 by
implementing a retrospective cross sectional study design. A total of 422 burn patients were
recruited by simple random sampling method. Data was collected from patients’ medical record
cards retrospectively. SPSS version 20 for widows was used for data entry and analysis.
Descriptive statistics and logistic regression were used to analyze the data.
Result: Burn accounted for 6.4% of patients who had visited the pediatric department of Yekatit
12 hospital during the study period. Children less than 3 years of age had the highest proportion
of patients (53.3%) and the median total body surface area (TBSA) burned was 11% with a range
of 1-95% . The most frequent burn injuries were scalds, followed by flame burns, electrical burns
, contact burns with hot solid object and chemical burns with 60%,32.9%, 3.8%, 2.4% and 0.9%
respectively. Most of the burns ( 49%) healed with no or minor sequelae and 7.85% of patients
died in the study period. Cause of burn has statistically significant association with death (P=
0.027).
Conclusion and recommendation: The leading causes of burn are scalds which are preventable.
Children should not be allowed in the kitchen and they should be kept in their beds or in their
room while their mothers are doing housework chores. The most effective way to prevent burns
is public education.
Key words/phrases: pediatric burn injuries, scald, partial thickness burn, full thickness burn,
TBSA
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Keywords
Pediatric burn injuries; Scald; Partial thickness burn; Full thickness burn; TBSA