Do they stay, or do they go? Children presenting to five emergency departments across New South Wales, Australia with acute burn injuries: a retrospective review.

Objective: The overall objective of the study was to describe the disposition status of children presenting with a burn injury to five emergency departments (ED) across New South Wales (NSW), Australia.

Design: A retrospective study design was used to review routinely collected ED data.

Setting: Study sites included five acute hospitals across NSW, Australia.

Participants: During the 5-year study period between 1 January 2015 to 31 December 2020, there were 5213 paediatric burn injury presentations.

Results: The mean age of burn injury presentations was 24 months (Inter-Quartile-Range (IQR) 12-84), of which 57% (2951/5213) were males. The most common presentation time was between 16:00 and 23:59 hours (63%, 3297/5213), and the median time spent in the ED was 3 hours (IQR 1-4). The majority (80%, 4196/5213) of the burn injuries presentations did not require hospital admission. The most common principal diagnoses were 'Burn body region unspecified' (n=1916) and 'Burn of wrist and hand' (n=1060).

Conclusion: Most children who presented to the hospital with a burn injury were not admitted. Often the details of these burns were poorly recorded and a complete picture of the true burden of burn injury in children, especially the ongoing care given outside the acute hospital setting, is missing. This information is crucial, as it would inform future models of care as the paradigm shifts rapidly towards primary, ambulatory and outpatient models of care.