Quality of life and return to work following electrical burns

Abstract

To investigate the psychosocial outcomes following electrical burns, a cross-sectional survey of electrical burn patients was done using three outcome tools: the Burn Specific Health Scale brief version (BSHS-B), the Coping with Burns Questionnaire (CBQ), and the Pain Patient Profile (P3 ®). Questionnaires were mailed to electrical burn patients discharged from an adult regional burn centre, and also distributed to attendants of an electrical utility conference in Toronto. Twenty-six of 88 patients who were discharged from the regional burn centre during the study period with updated residential information were contacted and 14 (54%) completed the questionnaires. Twenty questionnaires were also distributed at the conference and 8 (40%) were completed; leaving a total of 22 (48%) patients for the study. The average patient age was 44.0 ± 11.7 years; 21 (96%) were men, and the average time from injury to survey completion was 5.3 ± 4.9 years. Five (23%) of the 22 patients returned to the same work duties, 10 (45%) changed duties, and 7 (32%) did not return to work. BSHS-B scores were low for all patients. Participants with high voltage burns (>1000 V) had worse sexuality scores ( p < 0.05), while those with larger burns (>10% TBSA) had worse physical scores ( p < 0.05). Patients surveyed >5 years from injury showed improvement in physical scores. CBQ scores indicated that optimism was the most commonly used coping strategy. P3 ® showed significant levels of emotional distress in all patients, with anxiety being more common in high voltage injuries ( p < 0.05). The data suggests that electrical burn patients may have a limited ability to return to work and an overall poor quality of life. Emotional distress is the dominant feature influencing long-term outcome in these patients. Further studies are warranted to validate these findings.