ABSTRACT
<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To analyze epidemiological characteristics of burn inpatients in Hainan province over 8 years.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>Six thousand and ninety-nine burn patients admitted to 6 hospitals of Hainan province from January 2002 to December 2009 were enrolled in the study. The clinical data of these patients were analyzed retrospectively, including age, gender, injury cause, wound position, burn area, ailment prior to admission, admission time, medical insurance, length of hospital stay, and mortality rate, relationship among inpatient distribution, admission time, and ambient temperature at the time of admission. Data were processed with SPSS 13.0 software.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>There were more burn male patients than female, with ratio of 2.1: 1.0. Most patients were younger than 13 years (57.2%, 3488/6099). The most common burn area was smaller than or equal to 10% TBSA (67.4%, 4108/6099), and the fewest patients had burn areas of over 50% TBSA (2.0%, 121/6099). The main causative agents were hot liquid and flame, accounting for 71.5% (4358/6099), 17.9% (1092/6099), respectively. Most patients had injuries of more than two body areas (60.7%, 3705/6099), and lower extremity injury (17.1%, 1042/6099) was predominant in wound of single body area. Among 703 cases who had other ailments prior to admission (11.5%), the highest rate of prior ailments was found in patients older than 60 years (18.5%, 48/260), it was lowest in children younger than 1 year (8.0%, 32/398). The length of hospital stay was 1 to 375 day, and the admission time was 10 minutes to 90 days after burn. Total mortality rate was 0.4% (26 cases). The number of inpatients aged from 19 to 59 was obviously higher in months with high ambient temperature (from June to August), and for inpatients younger than 13 years the incidence of burn injury showed no obvious seasonal change. The inpatients who had medical insurance accounted for 10.9% (66/603) to 19.5% (121/619) from 2002 to 2005, which increased to 46.0% (372/808) in 2007 and 79.1% (869/1098) in 2009.</p><p><b>CONCLUSIONS</b>For burn inpatients in Hainan province, the main injury cause of burn injury is hot liquid, the number of burn adults aged from 19 to 59 seems to increase in months with high ambient temperature, while the incidence of burn in children showed no obvious seasonal change. The number of inpatients and those with medical insurance showed a tendency of increase from 2005 to 2009 in Hainan province.</p>