Characteristics of Burn Injury and Factors in Relation to Infection among Pediatric Patients

Burn injury is one of the most common and devastating forms of trauma and a major health problem of pediatric morbidity and mortality worldwide. The risk of infection in pediatric burns is well-known. An observational checklist was used by the researcher to assess the patients’ characteristics and factors related to burn injury and infection from 1037 pediatric patients. The observational data collection showed that 56.5% of patients were males. The highest risk groups for burn injury are preschool stages. The most frequent places for burns were home 97.5%. The mechanism of burn includes scalds 72.5%, flame 22.8%, contact 2.1%, electrical 1.8%, chemical 0.8% and friction 0.2%. The prevalence of infection was 23.4%. Patients from flame burns more likely get infections 39.1% (p=0.001). Other factors associated with infection such as degree of burns, extent of body burn surface and length of hospital stay. Regarding etiology of scald burn injury, hot water is a predominant cause of burn injury 78.99%. There was a significant relation between Total Body Surface Area (TBSA) and mortality p<0.001. Patients with >40% of TBSA has a high proportion rate for death 55.7%. The majority of died patients caused by flame 65.6% and statistically highly significant P<0.001. Infection and inhalation injury are the main factors related to death 37.7% vs. 58.0%. From 748 positive samples, the most common found organism was MethicillinResistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) 34.2%, followed by Pseudomonas aerogenosa and Acienetobacter baumannii 16.7%, 16.4% respectively. Patients with greater mean TBSA and prolonged hospital stay more likely to get Gram-negative bacterial and fungal infections and highly statistically significant p<0.001. Many other studies are need to determine the epidemiology and factors related to microbiological infection among pediatric burn patients.