Children have a higher risk of burns than adults. Childhood burns can cause scars mental health problems, disability and death. Many of these children need painful treatments throughout their lives and may miss a large amount of school. In the United Kingdom the medical treatment of children with burns occurs in many health settings. This depends on the severity of the injury. Children are treated in General Practices, Emergency Departments and in specialised Burns Units and Centres in hospitals.
At the moment there are no studies to describe the total number of children who suffer from burns or where they are treated. This knowledge is important to identify
- The size of the problem,
- Which age groups of children should be prioritised for prevention
- Whether prevention programmes work
- How much childhood burns cost the NHS
This study is part of a bigger piece of work that will estimate the number of children who have a burn and are treated in General Practice across the UK.
The study aims to explore the extent of paediatric burns across the United Kingdom (UK), through estimating the total incidence rates of mortality, hospital admissions (HA), burns service, Emergency Department (ED) and General Practice (GP) attendances for burns in children younger than 16 years in the UK between 2013 and 2015. The incidences of burn attendances at GPs will be obtained using the Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD). Using a cohort of children within CPRD aged less than 16 years, we aim to identify new cases using a time-window algorithm of three weeks, which will be assessed using a sensitivity analysis. Data for the remainder of settings will be collected from routine healthcare datasets and available epidemiology data collection systems. The number of burns for defined years will be extracted from sources and the denominator, namely the population at risk will be identified for CPRD. ONS mid-year 2013 and 2014 England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland population estimates will be used respectively for other settings, assuming all children aged less than 16 years are at risk. Incidence figures will be calculated per 10,000 children for children aged less than 16 years and, where not possible, for the age ranges reported by the source.
GP consultation for a burn
Alison Kemp - Chief Investigator - Cardiff University
Emma Johnson - Collaborator - Cardiff University
Hywel M. Jones - Collaborator - Cardiff University
Katie Davies - Collaborator - Cardiff University
Sabine Maguire - Collaborator - Cardiff University