Quality of Life in Adults With Lower Limb Burn Injury

Burn injury is an unpredictable incident that may result in long-term disability. Complications after burn injury are most common, for example, contracture, hypertrophic scar, or infection. A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted at a burn unit in Pakistan, and data were collected by "World Health Organization Disability Assessment Schedule (WHODAS) v 2.0 Self-Administered" from 140 burn victims with at least 6 months old injury. Subjects with at least 10% TBSA of either lower limb were included while patients suffering from any congenital or neurological disease or with amputation were excluded. The analyses were done by statistic version 16. Participant's mean age was 28.13 years and SD was ±7.87 years. Of the 140 patients, 96 (68.6%) were males and 44 (31.4%) were females. The cause of the burn injury was flame burn [72.9% (102)], chemical burn [5% (7)], scald burn [7.9% (11)], and electrical burn [14.3% (20)]. There were 74(52.9%) victims having burn injury at the right-hand side of the body and 47.1% (66) were with the left-hand side affected; 32.9% (46) were having burn injury at the hip joint, 37.9% (53) with the knee joint, 8.6% (12) ankle joint, and 20.7% (29) are having burn injury at whole limb. The mean disability score calculated by WHODAS v 2.0 self-administered was 13.96 with a SD of ±4.696. Burn injuries to the lower limb have a negative impact on all domains of quality of life of the victims. These individuals should be assessed at various times while developing a comprehensive rehabilitation treatment plan, especially focusing on the issues faced by such individuals to improve their quality of life.