Trends 10 years after burn injury: A Burn Model System National Database study

Background

The Burn Specific Health Scale-Brief (BSHS-B) evaluates 9 aspects of health and has been validated globally. Existing reports typically focus on outcomes shortly after injury. The purpose of this study is to determine whether quality of life remains a concern for burn survivors ten years after-injury.

Methods

Cross sectional data of survivors admitted from 1994 to 2006 to four US burn centers were collected in the Burn Model System National Database 10 years after injury. Responses to the items in the nine BSHS-B domains range from 0 to 4. Lower scores indicating poorer quality of life. Median scores are reported and differences were compared using Wilcoxon–Mann–Whitney test.

Results

Ten-year survivor injury characteristics suggest a moderate severity of injury. Survivors scored lower in heat sensitivity, affect, body image, and work (median = 3.2, 3.6, 2.8, and 3.6, respectively). Affect, body image, and interpersonal scores were significantly lower for females (median = 3.1, 2.8, 3.8, respectively) than males [median = 3.6, 3.3, 4, respectively (p = 0.008, 0.004, 0.022, respectively)].

Conclusions

Our results suggest certain domains of burn specific health benefit from support at 10 years after injury, and select populations such as females may necessitate additional treatment to restore burn-specific health. These results support that burn injuries represent a chronic condition and long-term medical and psychosocial support may benefit burn survivor recovery.