Changing Patterns in Electrical Burn Injuries in a Developing Country: Should Prevention Programs Focus on the Rural Population?

Abstract

In the developing world, the incidence of electrical injuries has increased in the past few years. This study attempts to identify the causative and demographic risk factors that can help in formulating a targeted prevention program. The study was conducted prospectively and retrospectively from 2004 to 2009. Eighty-four consecutive patients with electrical burn injuries were analyzed for their demographic profile, age, sex, occupation, rural-urban distribution, mode of injury, and place of injury. The patients were asked to fill out a questionnaire regarding their awareness about electrical burn injuries, and the results were tabulated. The age of presentation ranged from 3 to 61 years. The most frequently affected age group was the second decade of life (33.3%). Of 84 patients studied, 71 were male and 13 female. Fifty-nine patients were from the urban area, while 25 were from the surrounding rural area. Students including children and adolescents were the most common affected single group (22.5%). Contact with live wire or contact with an object that was in contact with a live wire (secondary contact) accounted for 43 of 84 cases (51%). Home was the most common location where injury occurred (51.2%). Twenty-one of 59 cases (35.6%) reported from the urban area and 3 of 25 cases (12%) from the rural area had specific knowledge about prevention of electrical burn injury. Forty-one patients (69.4%) from the urban area and 22 (88%) from the rural area believed that adequate information regarding electrical burn injury was not available. Thirty-six patients (61%) from the urban area and 24 (96%) from the rural area believed that they would have behaved differently if the information had been available. The authors recommend that prevention programs should be modified to cater to the specific needs of the younger age groups and the rural population.

Pattern of unintentional burns: A hospital based study from Pakistan

“…It may be due to the reason that most of the patients had manual work occupation. These people are at high risk of getting higher severity of burns because most of the manual workers are less educated and did not take adequate precautionary measures when dealing with dangerous substances, contact with hot objects, faulty wiring, excessive use of inferior quality of CNG cylinders in automobiles and most importantly, working unsafely with high tension wires [11,12]. These findings are consistent with the findings of several other studies [7,[13][14][15].…”

Prognostic factors in electrical burns: A review of 101 patients

“…Some of the dangerous circumstances increasing the risk for electrical burns include the presence of preschool children at home and the neglect of preventive measures such as leaving the power sockets exposed or failure to ground the electrical installations, the existence of a crowded family living together and the illegal utilisation of electrical installations in low socioeconomic regions. In a study led by Patil et al, 42% of the burns occurred at home, whereas 31% took place at work [2]. Ultimately, 61% of the patients originating from the urban areas and 96% of the patients from the rural areas stated that they would have demonstrated a different behavioural pattern if they had been adequately instructed before.…”

“…In the developed world, electrical burns constitute 3-5% of all burn cases; in developing countries, this ratio increases up to 21-27% [1] and the mortality rate is reported to be between 3.75% and 58.8% [2]. Approximately one-third of the electrical burns occur in electrical workers, one-third in construction workers and the last third in children playing at home.…”

Associated injuries in electrical burns: a 2 year retrospective study in a tertiary care burns unit

“…1 The sudden nature of the accident, the instantaneous effects that include flames, unconsciousness, violent muscular contractions, depth of damage, and the mutilating surgeries required have combined to make electrical injury a devastating accident. 2,3 The clinical spectrum of electrical burns can vary from mild complaints that do not require serious medical help to life-threatening conditions. 4 In spite of the serious nature of electrical burn injuries and the fact that they are mostly man-made, they remain understudied, mostly in the developing world.…”