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When do children get burnt?

Lyttle, Mark D.; Verey, Frances; Lyttle, Mark; Lawson, Zoe; Greenwood, Rosemary; Young, Amber

Authors

Mark D. Lyttle

Frances Verey

Zoe Lawson

Rosemary Greenwood

Amber Young



Abstract

© 2014 Elsevier Ltd and ISBI. All rights reserved. Burns are a cause of more than 5000 paediatric hospital admissions per year in England and Wales. Injury prevention and service provision may be better planned with knowledge of burn timing. Prospectively collected records from 1st January 2010 to 31st December 2011 were analysed. All episodes involving patients less than 16 years of age reviewed by the South West Children's Burns Centre were included. Data was collected from 1480 records to investigate seasonal, weekly, and daily variation. Day to day analysis showed significantly more burns occurred on Saturday and Sunday than Monday-Friday (p < 0.001). Of all burns, 46% occurred within the time-period 08:00-15:59; however the mean hourly rate of burns was highest between 16:00 and 18:59. Of the larger burns (>10% body surface area), 38% occurred after 19:00. There was no statistically significant variation in the monthly (p = 0.105) or seasonal (p = 0.270) distribution of burns. Bank holidays did not cause a statistically significant increase in numbers. Injury prevention strategies are likely to have most volume impact by increasing awareness of the peak time for burns in children, enabling parents at home with young children to modify any risky behaviour and by targeting older children and their behaviour.

Citation

Lyttle, M. D., Verey, F., Lyttle, M., Lawson, Z., Greenwood, R., & Young, A. (2014). When do children get burnt?. Burns, 40(7), 1322-1328. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.burns.2014.01.010

Journal Article Type Article
Publication Date Jan 1, 2014
Journal Burns
Print ISSN 0305-4179
Electronic ISSN 1879-1409
Publisher Elsevier
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 40
Issue 7
Pages 1322-1328
DOI https://doi.org/10.1016/j.burns.2014.01.010
Keywords paediatric, child, burn, scald, time, temporal, epidemiology
Public URL https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/826921
Publisher URL http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.burns.2014.01.010
Additional Information Additional Information : Available online 7 February 2014