The Incidence of Electrical, Chemical and Thermal Burns in Children and Adolescents Referred to Mottahari Hospital in Tehran in 2002

This retrospective, cross-sectional and descriptive study was performed on 599 burned patients who referred to Mottahari Hospital during one year(20.3.2002-20.3.2003) to determine the incidence of different kinds of burns in children and adolescents. The age of 15 years old or less was the basis of selection. Studied variables were patients’ age and sex, cause of burning, duration of hospitalization, burned surface percentage and mortality rate of patients. Of these 599 patients (mean age: 5.8), 167 were hospitalized and 432 were outpatient. In hospitalized group, 97.6% of patients had thermal burn, 2.4% had electrical burn, but nobody had chemical burn. In outpatient group, 98.8% had thermal burn, 0.9% had electrical burn and 0.3% had chemical burn. This study showed that burning occurred in male patients more than females (58.6% vs. 41.4%). Children younger than 5 years old were the most affected group. Most of the patients had burned surface area (BSA) less than 10% and a few patients had BSA more than 90%. The mortality rate was 4.8%.