Etiology

OT Dude Academy’s Free NBCOT® Exam Prep Course Burns Etiology

Incidence

Each year in the United States, 1.1 million burn injuries require medical attention. 50,000 will require hospitalization, and 20,000 have major burns involving at least 25% of total body surface area. Approximately 4,500 of these people die. Up to 10,000 people die in the United States from burn-related infections.1  The majority of burn injuries affect young men, with 60% of all burn injuries due to fire. Scald burns are more common in children. The workplace may also be a source of burns such as high-voltage electrical burns that account for a large number of injuries.2  95% of burns are accidental, 2% are related to abuse, and 1% are self-inflicted.3 

Statistics

  • Survival Rate: 96.8%
  • Gender: 68% Male, 32% Female
  • Ethnicity: 59% Caucasian, 20% African-American, 14% Hispanic, 7% Other
  • Admission Cause: 43% Fire/Flame, 34% Scald, 9% Contact, 4% Electrical, 3% Chemical, 7% Other
  • Place of Occurrence: 73% Home, 8% Occupational, 5% Street/Highway, 5% Recreational/Sport, 9% Other4 

Trend

A downward trend of the incidence of burns in the majority of countries including the United States has been described. A decrease in burn severity has also been described for the United States. A decline in the length of stay was seen for the United States. Regarding burn-related mortality, the United States has seen. decrease. The male:female ratio was 1.92:1 for the countries studied. Many other countries reported similar decreases in incidence, severity, and mortality. 5 

Mortality

Burns are the fourth most common cause of unintentional injury deaths in the United States.6 7  Mortality has decreased with the development of comprehensive burn centers, advances in treatment, improvements in resuscitation, topical antimicrobial agents, newer antibiotics, early excision and grafting, and the use of artificial skin substitutes.8 9  Inhalation injuries can significantly increase the risk of mortality unless the burn is less than 10% of the total body surface area (TBSA). Age can impact survival. Other factors such as sepsis and ventilator dependency may be a predictor of mortality.10 

 

  1. American Burn Associations (2002) Burn Incidence Fact Sheet.[↩]
  2. Esselman, P. C. (2007). Burn rehabilitation: an overview. Archives of physical medicine and rehabilitation, 88(12), S3-S6.[↩]
  3. Greenhalgh, D. G. (2019). Management of burns. New England Journal of Medicine, 380(24), 2349-2359.[↩]
  4. American Burn Association. (2015). National Burn Repository. Retreived from https://ameriburn.org/who-we-are/media/burn-incidence-fact-sheet/[↩]
  5. Smolle, C., Cambiaso-Daniel, J., Forbes, A. A., Wurzer, P., Hundeshagen, G., Branski, L. K., … & Kamolz, L. P. (2017). Recent trends in burn epidemiology worldwide: a systematic review. Burns, 43(2), 249-257.[↩]
  6. GBD 2013 Mortality and Causes of Death Collaborators. Global, regional, and national age-sex specific all-cause and cause-specific mortality for 240 causes of death, 1990-2013: a systemic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2013. Lancet 2015;385:117-171.[↩]
  7. Norton R, Kobusingye O. Injuries. N Engl J Med 2013;368:1723-1730.[↩]
  8. Williams WG. Pathophysiology of the burn wound. In: Herndon DN, editor. Total burn care. 2nd ed. New York: WB Saunders; 2002. p 514-22.[↩]
  9. Thomas S, Barrow RE, Herndon DN. History of the treatment of burns. In: Herndon DN, editor. Total burn care. 2nd ed. New York: WB Saunders; 2002. p 1-10.[↩]
  10. Spies M, Herndon DN, Rosenblatt JI, Sanford AP, Wolf SE. Prediction of mortality from catastrophic burns in children. Lancet 2003;361:989-94[↩]
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