Fifteen-minute consultation: Management of paediatric minor burns

Abstract

Burn injuries are a common presentation to the paediatric emergency department (PED) and are painful, distressing and may have long-term sequelae. In adhering to the first aid principles of burns management, we aim to alleviate pain, prevent bacterial contamination and minimise the extent of injury. First aid involves cooling the burn and covering with an appropriate material while simultaneously providing analgesia. Assessing the severity (depth and total body surface area) of the burn are important for prognostication with implications for management. It is imperative to consider non-accidental injury in burns, which be present in 10% of cases .

Do they stay, or do they go? Children presenting to five emergency departments across New South Wales, Australia with acute burn injuries: a retrospective review

“…Factors such as age, burn total body surface area, burn depth, residential location and the availability of outpatient or primary care resources are all influential in the decision to treat paediatric burn injuries on an inpatient or an outpatient setting 8 10 19. Paediatric burns tend to be smaller, more superficial and the majority of partial thickness burns will normally heal without long-term sequelae 25. In addition, modern popular dressings require infrequent changing and can dwell unchanged for up to 7 days 26.…”

“… 8 10 19 Paediatric burns tend to be smaller, more superficial and the majority of partial thickness burns will normally heal without long-term sequelae. 25 In addition, modern popular dressings require infrequent changing and can dwell unchanged for up to 7 days. 26 These reasons have encouraged a growing trend towards managing paediatric minor burn injuries on an outpatient basis.…”

The Systemic Immune-Inflammation Index (SII) and Neutrophil-Lymphocyte Ratio (NLR) are related to hospitalisation time in paediatric burn patients

“…The results of the study indicate that surgical treatment was more often performed in patients that did not receive appropriate wound cooling after injury. The role of wound cooling in the prognosis of patients with burns is well established [13][14][15][16]. The authors compared the burn wound cooling methods [2,3,17].…”