Mortality from burns at the “Arnaldo Milian Castro” University Hospital Provincial de Villa Clara

Abstract

Introduction: burns are a major cause of morbidity and mortality in most countries. Objetive: to characterize mortality in patients hospitalized for burns. Method: a retrospective longitudinal descriptive study was conducted at the Burn Unit of "Arnaldo Milián Castro" Hospital from 2009 to 2014. The sample consisted of 68 cases. The variables were: age group, sex, previous illnesses, life prognosis, complications, medicolegal etiology, direct cause of death and hospital stay. Results: 44.1% of those who died were over 60 years, dominated women sex (60.3%), medicolegal etiology in 73.6% of cases was suicide predominated death among those with chronic diseases such as cardiovascular (41.2%) and psychiatric (29.6%), 52.9% had inhaled syndrome, 51.3% anemia and 45.6% local sepsis, direct causes of death more frequent were hypovolemic shock (39.7%) in the first 72 hours of evolution, septic shock (19.1%) among the quarter and 12 day of stay, pulmonary embolism and septic schok among those with more than 15 days (8.8%), the 61.8% of death presented forecast of extreme critic and 27.9% of critic and most of the deaths occurred between the fourth and the fifteenth day of stay. Conclusions: the complications and the most frequent causes of death were similar to international reports and the medicolegal etiology most frequent was suicide, which differed from the reported internationally, because accident was predominant in burn patients.

Keywords

• quemaduras
• accidentes
• mortalidad