Epidemiology and severity of paediatric burn injuries occurring during camping and caravanning holidays

Background

Due to its unique location, the South West England Paediatric Burns Service based in Bristol admits an interesting cohort of holiday-makers, who have sustained their burns whilst on camping and caravanning holidays.

Aim

We aimed to establish whether burns sustained during camping and caravanning holidays are more severe and require more extensive intervention compared to burns sustained in other situations.

Methods

We undertook a retrospective, observational study of admissions to the South West Paediatric Burns Service between June, and August from 2003 to 2005. Our primary outcome was to assess the severity of the burns as defined by percentage total body surface area of partial and full thickness burns. We used secondary outcomes of indirect indicators of burn severity: length of hospital stay, number of general anaesthetics, and need for surgical debridement, artificial skin dressing and/or skin grafting. Analysis of the data was undertaken using Mann–Whitney test, Fisher's exact test, and Chi-squared test.

Results

151 patients were included in the study, 30 (20%) of which were campers. Our results show that burns sustained during camping and caravanning holidays are significantly more likely to be of larger surface area than burns sustained in other environments. Campers’ burns also required more frequent surgical intervention (in 87% versus 66%) and had longer inpatient admissions (5.3 days versus 3.8 days).

Conclusions

Our results have implications for clinicians and campsite owners. Access to free flowing water is often not immediately available on campsites and time taken to reach the nearest Emergency Department is often prolonged with a further delay before reaching the tertiary centre. The general public needs to be aware of the risks of burn during camping and caravanning holidays. Campsite owners should consider improving first aid facilities and clinicians need to be aware of the need for early referral and timely transfer to tertiary facilities.