ABSTRACT
Burn injury is a disaster. Burn injuries still produce a significant morbidity and mortality in Iran. Imam Rreza hospital burn center in Khorasan, serves 5420000 people in an area of 302000 krrf. The most of the people injured are from low socioeconomic levels. The aim was to make a critical analysis of mortality in our burn center with a view to finding possible ways of improving the care given to our patients and suggesting ways of reducing mortality. This study was carried out to analyze the epidemiology of 866 patients who died in Imam Reza hospital burn center during the 4 years from 15 march 2003 to 15 march 2007. During this 4-year period, 4697 patients were hospitalized. Eight hundred and eighty-six of the patients [18%] died, of whom 322 were male and 544 female. The age and sex of patients, extent of injury, season of occurrence, and duration of admission to hospital before death, as well as the possible cause [s] of death, were collected from the patient folders. The statistical analysis was performed using SPSS soft ware, p value less than 0.05 was considered as statistically significant. The overall incidence rates of hospitalization and death were 21.6 and 3.9 per 100000 persons in each year. The mean age for accidental patients was 30.8 years, and for self-inflicted burns was 28.3 years. In the accidental patients, the BSA of the burns ranged from 5 to 95%, with a median of 70%. In the self-inflicted patients, the median of BSA was 90%. The median hospital stay was 7 days with a range of 1-96 days for burned patients. The majority of accidental burns was caused by Flammable liquid [47%] and of self inflicted burns by kerosene [97%]. The highest mortality was observed in the age group 11-30 years. Factors associated with an increase in mortality were suicidal burns and burn size