Sustaining burns is considered a stressful life event that has the power to elicit depressive symptoms. This study aimed to identify predictors of depressive symptoms by investigating the role of demographic variables, the number of operations (burn severity), neuroticism, and cognitive emotion regulation styles as possible influencing factors. Data from 242 patients with burns were analyzed employing latent growth modeling. The level of depressive symptoms across the 2-year interval was associated with burn severity, higher levels of neuroticism and rumination, and lower levels of positive refocusing. Notably, rumination partly mediated the effect of neuroticism on the course of depressive symptoms. Correlational analysis suggested a specific effect of burn severity on rumination. The results indicate that screening for symptoms of depression, rumination, and neuroticism in burn patients is useful. Early interventions focusing on cognitive restructuring could assist in improving the cognitive emotional adaptation process following a burn event.

Pruritus is a frequently encountered symptom following burns. Higher intensity of itching has been associated with depth of the wounds and specific body locations but these differences are not well understood. Our aim was to investigate the intensity of post burn pruritus in grafted and non-grafted burns across anatomic areas and to report on itch-inducing factors and applied treatments. The study included 226 patients prospectively followed for 18 months. Results showed that grafted patients and non-grafted patients reported similar overall itch intensity in-hospital. At 3 months post burn, grafted patients had higher overall itch scores, a difference that was found robust across the study period. Grafted wounds were found to produce higher mean itch intensity at 3 months post burn but this difference disappeared at 12 months post burn. Differences in itch prevalence rates were found across anatomic areas, but only in non-grafted burns. The differences in itch intensity on patient level versus wound level suggest that on the longer run, peripheral mechanism do not explain the higher itch scores in grafted patients.