Burns : journal of the International Society for Burn Injuries
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A major fire occurred on January 27, 2013, at 02:30 at Kiss nightclub in the city of Santa Maria, State of Rio Grande do Sul, in Southern Brazil. In this retrospective report, we aimed to describe the nightclub fire event, its immediate consequences, and evaluated its impact on legislation. Our objective was to disseminate the lessons we learned from this large-scale nightclub fire disaster. ⋯ As we push for enactment of the national law of prevention and fire fighting in Brazil, we will continue emphasizing fire prevention, fire protection, fire fighting, means of escape and proper management. All similar events in this and other countries remind us that similar tragedies may occur anywhere, and that the analysis of facts, previous mistakes, during and after the incident are crucial to our understanding, and will help us lessen the chance of future occurrences.
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Hospital length of stay (LOS) is utilized to estimate resource utilization and quality of care. In burns the LOS estimation is 1day per percent total body surface area burn (1day/%TBSA). Our purpose was to evaluate the 1day/%TBSA burn rule and develop simple accurate formulas to predict LOS. ⋯ Traditional LOS estimates of 1day/%TBSA burn rule is biased, underestimating LOS, particularly for patients >40 years with inhalation injury. The following formulas applied at admission can accurately estimate hospital LOS, improve prediction over 1day/%TBSA, and provide results comparable to complicated models.
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Health administrative databases may provide rich sources of data for the study of outcomes following burn. We aimed to determine the accuracy of International Classification of Diseases diagnoses codes for burn in a population-based administrative database. ⋯ Administrative data diagnosis codes accurately identify burn by burn size and mechanism, while identification of inhalation injury or full-thickness burns is less sensitive but highly specific.
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Patients with burns have to live with a variety of long-term physical and psychosocial consequences. Burns lead to prolonged hospital stay, disfiguring scars, disability, and even death. Since self-immolation is common in women of Iraqi Kurdistan, the present study sought to explore the experiences of women living with scars caused by self-immolation. ⋯ Four categories emerged during the data analysis: (1) feelings of disbelief, regret, and anger caused by post-burn scars; (2) desperately seeking solutions; (3) grief due to disappointment and surrender to despair; and (4) rejection and isolation. In conclusion, individuals with scars and disfigurements sometimes adopted inappropriate measures to deal with the psychological problems caused by others' behaviors and wrong perceptions. Educational and support programs are hence indicated to promote awareness levels of self-immolation survivors, their families, and the whole society.
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To analyze the direct costs of treating critically ill patients in the intensive care unit of a center specializing in treating burns. ⋯ The direct costs of the treatment of burn patients at the study center were high. The drugs and blood products block presented the highest mean total and daily costs. Non surviving patients presented higher costs.