Socioeconomic impact of children's burns-a pilot study

Abstract

Objective: This pilot study aimed to gain empirical data on the social and economic impacts of child burns on children and parents, in the context of the outpatient setting.

Method: A questionnaire was completed by 52 parents of paediatric patients attending the burns outpatient department at Queen Victoria Hospital (QVH), East Grinstead, for at least the third time. Children's medical notes were used to extract demographic and medical data. Quantitative data was analyzed statistically and qualitative data was analyzed manually using content analysis.

Results: The financial burden related to the injury posed the greatest impact on parents, and was mainly associated with making the journey to the hospital, with lower income households being most affected. Self-employed parents and those who had to attend more than 6 hospital appointments also ran into difficulties. On the whole, there was not a considerable social impact on the burn-injured child, which may reflect the minor nature of burns in this study (mean depth partial thickness, median TBSA 1.0%).

Conclusion: Parents were shown to perceive a greater impact from their child's burn injury than their child. Certain groups of parents were identified as requiring additional support following the burn injury.

Keywords: Burns; Impact; Injured children; Non-injured siblings; Parents; Psychological; Socioeconomic.