[Burn prevention: perception of the patients and their relative ]

This study aimed at investigating the ways to prevent burns identified by burned patients and their relatives. Data were collected at the Burns Unit of the Ribeirão Preto Medical School Clinical Hospital, University of São Paulo--Brazil by means of interviews with burned patients and their relatives. Four referees categorized data. In order to verify the existence of agreement among the referees with regard to categorization, the non-parametric correlation measure was used--Contingency Coefficient. Fifty-seven people were interviewed: 24 relatives and 33 burned patients. Of the 33 interviewed patients, 18 had suffered accidents at home. Of the 57 interviewees, 11 stated that they could not have avoided the accident causing the burn. Twenty patients and 12 relatives identified risk situations at home or at work and 13 patients and 12 relatives did not identify any types of risk situations. The relatives and patients referred to the following preventive measures for burning accidents: to be attentive to the activities that they perform and to be more careful while handling flammable products.