English

Abstract

BACKGROUND The skin is the largest organ of our body with a complex function. Burn injuries result in damage to the skin by electrical, chemical, thermal or radiation energies or a combination of them, by far the most common being the thermal injuries. However, most burn injuries are preventable and hence need preventive strategies. Outcome is dependent on various factors. The focus of this study is to provide an overview of various factors and clinical presentation of burn injury and their correlation of these various factors with outcome of burn injury. METHODS A retrospective facility-based document review analytical study was conducted on 215 patients admitted in the emergency (burn ward) department of Government Medical College and Hospital, Srinagar, Kashmir from September 2019 to September 2020. RESULTS In our study, out of total 215 hospitalized burn patients, 101 (47 %) were female and 114 (53 %) were males. In 103 (47.9 %) patients, burn injury was caused by scald burn, kangri burn was present in 3 (1.4 %) patients; 207 (96.3 %) patients had accidental burns and 8 (3.7 %) patients had suicidal burn injuries; 181 (84.2 %) had received good pre-hospital intervention; 165 (76.7 %) patients were discharged without complications. Various parameters – degree of burn, cause of burn, nature of burn, nutritional status and antibiotic coverage show statistical significance with P-value < 0.05. CONCLUSIONS Kashmir is a valley surrounded by mountains, has cold weather for about threequarters of year. People here are more prone to burn injuries especially thermal injuries. Outcome of burn injuries is better for lesser degree of burns and mortality increases with severe degree of burns. Patients without complications, patients with good nutritional status at presentation and patients with proper antibiotic coverage had good outcome. KEYWORDS Burn Injury, Kangri, Outcome of Burn