Comparing a Single Institution's Experience With Electrical Injuries to the Data Recorded in the National Burn Repository

Electrical injuries usually represent a small proportion of a burn center's admissions. Although burn size may be small, internal tissue damage is sometimes extensive. This study reviews a single institution's experience with electrical injuries and compares it to the multi-institutional data of the National Burn Repository (NBR). The 2009 NBR and the records of a large urban burn center (single institution) were queried for adult electrical injuries over an 8-year period. Data examined included demographics, %TBSA burn, length of stay (LOS), injury circumstance, and disposition. Multiple linear regression models were created to determine factors related to LOS. One hundred ninety-one single-institution patients and 2837 multi-institution patients met the criteria. Both cohorts were mostly white males approximately 30 years of age and injuries where often work-related. Single-institution patients had a mean injury size of 4% TBSA, while multi-institution patients had 7%. The most common exposure source was domestic wiring for single-institution patients and electrical power plants/lines for multi-institution patients. Single-institution data showed that females had a shorter LOS than males (P < .0001). Single-institution data showed that independent risk factors for an increased LOS were infection, amputation, fasciotomy, and being Hispanic. Independent risk factors for multi-institution patients were being Hispanic and large %TBSA burn. There was no difference in mortality, gender, age, LOS, or intensive care unit LOS between the cohorts. In this analysis, there was no statistical difference between outcomes in the single-or multi-institutional groups. However, injuries reported in the NBR were slightly larger. In both cohorts, an increase in LOS was associated with %TBSA, as expected. Interestingly, Hispanic ethnicity correlated with an increased LOS. Future work will be aimed at understanding this correlation to determine whether it is specific to electrical injury or burns in general. (J Burn Care Res 2012;33:606-611)