Darius Kubilius, Rytis Rimdeika, Mindaugas Kazanavičius

Abstract

Background and objective. The article presents the main Lithuanian burns epidemiological data, assesses raw and standardized data trends. The burns data is compared with particular data of other casualties of external causes of the Lithuanian population and also compared with international data. Material and methods. The non-experimental descriptive study examined burn casualties in the period of 2001–2010. Burn cases were selected from national institutions according to ICD-10 disease codes T20-T32. The data was classified and standardised by gender and age groups. Results. There were 77.025 of burns diagnosed. The ratio of men and women was 4:3. The largest total number of burns was at the 15-39 and 40-64 year age groups – 51941 persons. The highest burn injury case rate was in the 0-14 years age group – 284 cases, the lowest in the 65+ age group – 172 cases. There were 2.574 fire related deaths and 2.456 injuries registered. People were mainly affected by fires in the domestic environment (86%). Since 2008 the ratio of burns and traffic injury has changed from 1 to 1.4 in the disfavour of burns. Conclusions. The total number of burns is decreasing. However, according to standardized figures, there is an increasing trend in the children group. Burns of the workable age people (15-64 years of age) make up the largest share of all burns. The number of burns should be reduced by implementing intensive burns prevention programs.

doi:10.5200/sm-hs.2012.056

Keyword(s): burns; epidemiology; prevention; injury
DOI: 10.5200/297
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