ABSTRACT
The incidence of burn injuries varies from country to country. Burn trauma has been one of the most devastating health problems for all the times. It requires a treatment process including a multidisciplinary approach by experienced burn surgeons and health care professionals in a well-equipped burn unit or center. The aim of this study was to ascertain and analyze the epidemiology and outcome in major burns patients at our center. Methods: This prospective study was conducted at Department of Surgery, Hamdard Institute of Medical Sciences and Research, Jamia Hamdard, New Delhi India from April 2017 to july 2019. A total of 627 patients were enrolled in study. The principal investigator obtained the variables of clinical histories from the admission records, case notes, operation details, anesthesia charts, and nursing monitoring charts. Help of a biostatistician was taken for data collection and analysis. The data collected were thoroughly cleaned and entered into MS-Excel spread sheets and analysis was carried out. Results: Patient in age group less than 15 yrs were 76 (12%), majority of the patients i.e. 514 (82%) were in age group between 15 and 45 years and only 37 patients(6%) were of age more than 45 years. Most common area of burn was the upper limb in our patients (39.78%), followed by head and neck (24.21%), lower limbs (26.49%) and anterior trunk (9.52%).Of the 627 patients, 167 patients (26.6%) had ARDS (Acute respiratory distress syndrome), 232 patients (37.0%) had septicemia, 465 patients (74.16%) had wound infection (as diagnosed by wound cultures), 123 patients (19.6%) had urinary tract infection, and 12 patients (1.9%) had clostridium difficile colitis. Total of 232(37%) patients died during their hospital stay. Discussion: Age and sex are essential elements of any epidemiological study.The age distribution seen in our study is in concordance with that seen in other studies . In our study 370/627 (59%) patients were males with a male to female ratio of about 1.5:1. Comparing data regarding the gender preponderance, our observations are in agreement with other authors. In our study most common area of burn was the upper limb in our patients (39.78%), followed by head and neck (24.21%), lower limbs (26.49%) and anterior trunk (9.52%). This finding of our study is similar to that of Sadeghi Bazargani et al. Conclusion: It is a well known fact that burns are serious but preventable accidents and without recognition of affecting factors we cannot plan any preventive program. Most victims of major burns come from poor, underdeveloped areas. These people have little formal education about burns and are either low skilled temporary workers or unemployed. So the knowledge of affecting factors in relation to demography and epidemiology of patients is a must for proper management of burn victims