• Janine Duke, Fiona Wood, James Semmens, Dale W Edgar, Katrina Spilsbury, Alwena Willis, Delia Hendrie, and Suzanne Rea.
• Centre for Population Health Research, Centre Curtin Health Innovation Research Institute, Curtin University, Perth, Western Australia, Australia. j.duke@curtin.edu.au
• Australas J Ageing. 2012 Jun 1; 31 (2): 83-9.

AimTo estimate temporal trends in burn injury hospitalisations, mortality and hospital stay, for older adults with a burn-related hospitalisation.MethodsDe-identified data of all incident burn hospitalisations for adults 60 years and older in Western Australia from 1983-2008 were analysed. Poisson regression analyses were used to estimate temporal trends in hospital admissions and mortality. Zero truncated negative binomial regression analysis was used to identify factors associated with hospital stay.ResultsBetween 1983 and 2008, hospitalisation rates increased for scalds (incident rate ratio (IRR) 1.01, 95% CI: 1.00-1.02) and contact burns (IRR 1.05, 95% CI: 1.03-1.07) while a significant reduction in flame hospitalisation rates (IRR 0.93, 95% CI: 0.92-0.94) was estimated. No significant changes in length of stay or burn-related mortality were estimated.ConclusionsBurn safety and prevention strategies that include first aid education need to be developed that target older adults living in their homes, to decrease their risk of sustaining burn injuries.© 2011 The Authors. Australasian Journal on Ageing © 2011 ACOTA.

28 keywords...

hide…