Abstract
BackgroundTransitioning from the burn unit to the home/community can be chaotic with limited professional support. Some adult burn survivors may face varied concerns leading to poor outcomes in the early post-discharge period with limited access to professional help. Based on these, a nurse-led transitional burns rehabilitation programme has been developed and the current trial aims to ascertain its effects as well as explore the implementation process.MethodsA single-centre, double-arm randomised controlled trial with a process evaluation phase will be utilised for this study. All adult burn survivors aged ≥ 18 years with burn size ≥ 10% total burn surface area at the site during the study period will be screened for eligibility at least 72 h to discharge. A sample size of 150 will be block randomised to treatment (receiving the nurse-led transitional care programme and routine post-discharge service) and control groups (receiving routine post-discharge service). The nurse-led transitional care programme comprises of predischarge and follow-up phases with the delivery of bundle of holistic interventions lasting for 8 weeks. There are three timelines for data collection: baseline, immediate post intervention, and 4 weeks post-intervention.DiscussionThe findings from this study can potentially inform the development and organisation of post-discharge care and affirm the need for ongoing comprehensive home-based care for burn survivors and their familiesTrial registrationClinicalTrials.govNCT04517721. Registered on 20 August 2020
Highlights
Transitioning from the burn unit to the home/community can be chaotic with limited professional support
A secondary objective of this study is to examine the process involved and issues encountered during the implementation of the transitional rehabilitation programme
Recovery following burns is a complex process with varied biopsychosocial-environmental needs and rehabilitative support commensurate to those needs is very important to ensure optimal recovery of the burn survivors [55]
Summary
Transitioning from the burn unit to the home/community can be chaotic with limited professional support. By 6–12 months post-discharge, the burn survivor may experience further distress reflected by the high rates of depression, sleep disturbances, body image concerns, and posttraumatic stress disorder [16,17,18]. Taken together, these may suggest that the transitional period from the immediate pre-discharge to the early post-discharge phase represent a vulnerable stage which can impact long-term recovery outcome [14]
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