Lisbon Burn Centre experience with intentional burn injuries

Burn injury as a form of hetero or auto-aggression accounts for a significant amount of admissions to a Burn Care Unit, with epidemiologic and clinical specificities. To investigate the differences in risk factors, psychiatric comorbidities, injury severity and mortality among adult patients with accidental or intentional burns, we analyzed routinely collected data from a Central Hospital Burn Unit over a period of 6 years (January 1st, 2010 to December 31st, 2015). We identified 22 intentional burn patients (5%) among all the admissions to our Burn Unit. When compared to the accidental burns, the intentional burn patients are significantly younger (45.7±14.7 vs. 54.9±19.9), have a bigger percentage of body surface area burned (35% vs. 14%), have a higher incidence of inhalation burn (50% vs. 22.8%) and higher mortality (18.2% vs. 6.1%). Fifty-five percent of cases of intentional burns were self-inflicted. Self-inflicted burns have a worse prognosis than hetero-aggressions (inhospital mortality 25% vs. 10%). Psychiatric comorbidities were largely more prevalent in the intentional burn patients (59% vs. 6.6%), namely mood disorders. Compared to patients with accidental burns, intentional burn patients have worse clinical condition and prognosis. A multidisciplinary preventive approach, looking at the specificities of the violent nature of the lesions and identifying risk groups may reduce the incidence and severity of this type of burns.