A study on treatment profile and covariates of outcome of burn injury in a Tertiary Medical hospital in West Bengal

Background: Burns are a global public health problem due to its high mortality, morbidity and disability amongst young and middle-aged adults. Objective: The study was planned to understand of relevant underlying factors responsible for burn injuries, the treatment profile and covariates of outcome of burn injury. Method: A cross-sectional design and hospital based study was undertaken in the burn wards under the Department of Plastic Surgery in a tertiary care government hospital over a period of one year from 1st May 2020 to 30th April 2021 on patients of recent burn injuries. Data entry and statistical analysis were done using SPSS version 20.0. Descriptive statistics (frequency, percentage, mean and standard deviation) were used primarily to summarize and for analytical statistics, Chi-square was used. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression were applied and Odd’s ratio(OR) and adjusted Odd’s ratio (AOR) were calculated in 95 % confidence interval. Result: Only 22.8% patients reached hospital within 1 hour of the injury event. Application of medical ointment over the burnt skin surface was done for around one fourth (23.6%) of the study population prior to reach hospital. Mean duration of hospital stay was 40.5 days which ranged from less than 1 day to maximum 196 days. Wound infection (44.7%) followed by septicaemia (33.7%) were the two most common complications prevalent among the study population. Pseudomonas aeruginosa (38.3%) was the most common organism responsible for wound infection. Conclusion: The current study also found very poor outcome related to burn injuries in terms of survival (mortality rate: 39.5%), which is not related to the severity of injury only but others factors like delaying in hospitalisation, improper pre-hospital burn care is also responsible for high fatal outcome associated with burn injury