A profile of adult patients with major burns admitted to a Level 1 Trauma Centre and their functional outcomes at discharge: A retrospective review

South African Journal of Physiotherapy

 
 
Field Value
 
Title A profile of adult patients with major burns admitted to a Level 1 Trauma Centre and their functional outcomes at discharge: A retrospective review
 
Creator Angelou, Irene K. van Aswegen, Heleen Wilson, Moira Grobler, Regina
 
Subject Health Sciences; Physiotherapy burn injury; physical function; length of stay; injury severity; range of motion
Description Background: Patients with major burns suffer with pain, which impacts their physical function during hospitalisation.Objectives: To describe the demographics, burn characteristics, clinical course, physical function, complications developed after major burns and to establish predictors of non-independent physical function at hospital discharge.Method: Records of all consecutive adult burn admissions to a Level 1 Trauma Centre between 2015 and 2017 were screened retrospectively against our study criteria, using the Trauma Bank Data Registry. Anonymised data from included records were captured on specifically designed data extraction forms. Descriptive statistics were used to summarise findings. A regression analysis was undertaken to establish predictors of non-independent function at discharge.Results: Males represented 87.7% (n = 64) of included records (n = 73). Median age was 38 (interquartile range [IQR]: 22). Thermal burns were most reported (n = 47, 64.4%), followed by median total body surface area (TBSA) 31% and head and arms were most affected (60.3% and 71.2%). Injury severity was high with median intensive care unit (ICU) length of stay (LOS) of 17 (IQR: 34) and hospital LOS 44 (IQR: 31) days. Wound debridement was mostly performed (n = 27, 36.9%) with limb oedema as a common complication (n = 15, 21.7%). Muscle strength and functional performance improved throughout LOS. None of the variables identified were predictors of non-independent function at hospital discharge.Conclusion: Adults with major burns were predominantly male, in mid-life and sustained thermal injury with a high injury severity. Decreased range of motion (ROM) of affected areas, ‘fair’ muscle strength and independent function were recorded for most patients at hospital discharge.Clinical implications: These findings contribute to the limited body of evidence on the profile, clinical course and outcomes of South African adult burn patients.
 
Publisher AOSIS
 
Contributor
Date 2022-01-11
 
Type info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion — A single-centre retrospective record review
Format text/html application/epub+zip text/xml application/pdf
Identifier 10.4102/sajp.v78i1.1543
 
Source South African Journal of Physiotherapy; Vol 78, No 1 (2022); 7 pages 2410-8219 0379-6175
 
Language eng
 
Relation
The following web links (URLs) may trigger a file download or direct you to an alternative webpage to gain access to a publication file format of the published article:

https://sajp.co.za/index.php/sajp/article/view/1543/2816 https://sajp.co.za/index.php/sajp/article/view/1543/2817 https://sajp.co.za/index.php/sajp/article/view/1543/2818 https://sajp.co.za/index.php/sajp/article/view/1543/2819
 
Coverage Hospital 36 months period (January 2015 – December 2017) Adults; male and female; all ethnicities
Rights Copyright (c) 2022 Irene K. Angelou, Heleen van Aswegen, Moira Wilson, Regina Grobler https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
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