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What influences the functional outcome of children at 6 months post-burn?
Insights
Child burn recovery is significantly influenced by pre-existing conditions and parental support, rather than the burn severity itself. These factors predict functional outcomes six months post-injury.
Area of Science:
- Pediatric burn recovery
- Child psychology
- Rehabilitation medicine
Background:
- Pediatric burn injuries present complex challenges impacting a child's long-term functional outcome.
- Understanding the multifactorial influences on recovery is crucial for effective intervention.
Purpose of the Study:
- To examine the contribution of demographic, injury, pre-morbid, and parent factors to functional outcomes at 6 months post-burn.
- To determine the relative importance of these factors in pediatric burn recovery.
Main Methods:
- Hierarchical multiple regression analyses were used.
- Sixty-eight children (aged 5-14 years) with varying burn severities (%TBSA) and their caregivers participated.
- Factors analyzed included burn severity, operative procedures, pre-morbid conditions, and parent psychological factors.
Main Results:
- Pre-morbid child factors and parent factors significantly predicted functional outcomes.
- Injury severity did not show a significant impact on functional outcome.
- The model, including all factors, explained a substantial portion of the variance in functional outcome (R=0.85).
Conclusions:
- Pre-morbid child characteristics and parental psychological well-being are key determinants of functional recovery after pediatric burns.
- Interventions should consider addressing these psychosocial factors alongside physical recovery.
- Future research should explore these relationships further to optimize rehabilitation strategies.
Abstract:
The contribution of demographic, injury, pre-morbid, and parent factors to a child's functional outcome at 6 months post-burn injury was examined. Sixty-eight children, aged 5-14 years with percent total body surface area (%TBSA) burns ranging from <1 to 35%, and their primary caregivers participated in the study. It was expected that pre-morbid and parent factors but not injury factors would have a significant impact on the functional outcome of children at 6 months post-burn. Injury factors included the percent of total body surface area burned, number of operative procedures, and source of the burn (i.e. flame burn, scald burn). Pre-morbid child factors included the presence or absence of behaviour problems, psychological or psychiatric problems, learning difficulty or developmental delay. Parent factors included anxiety, depression, coping processes, and social support. Whilst investigating the contribution of these factors to functional outcome, the effect of demographic factors (i.e. age, gender, family socioeconomic status, and the number of previous hospitalizations) was controlled for and investigated. Analyses included two hierarchical multiple regression analyses that supported the expected results. R was significantly different from zero at the end of each step in both hierarchical regression analyses, indicating that each group of factors added significantly to the fit of the model. After step 4 in the final regression model with all independent variables in the equation, R=0.85, F(18,49)=6.89, P<0.001.