Burn Patterns and Seasonal Change at a Specialized Burn Facility – 5 years review

Objectives:
	In Portugal there are many burn victims, some of them having to be admitted at dedicated Burn Centres. This leads to great social and economic costs. Even though several studies investigated the impact of temporal factors on the incidence of trauma admissions, hardly any data exists concerning the impact of seasonal change on burn profile.
	The main purpose of this study is trying to understand the real importance of the “temporal” factor on burn patients, correlating it with other epidemiological data and trying to establish preventive strategies.

Methodology:
	This retrospective analysis included all burn patients (≥18 years; 420 patients) admitted to the Burn Unit at Hospital São José (Lisboa) between December 2010 and December 2015 (5 years). Data was extracted from medical records and included age, gender, etiology, circumstance, depth and extension of burn. This information was then grouped in 4 temporal categories: Summer, Autumn, Winter, Spring.

Results: 
	This study demonstrates that the number of patients admitted to this Burn Unit didn’t show seasonal variation. The majority of burns was caused by fire and hot liquids. Winter seems to be associated with greater depths of burn and Summer with higher body surface area injured. Fire burns were less predominant during Spring.

Conclusion:
	The number of burns in Portugal is still very high and preventive measures are sometimes ineffective.
	With this study, we intended to understand better the burn profiles, establishing patterns of injury and searching for any seasonal variations. It is essential to anticipate all these variables to delineate more effectively the preventive strategy.