Preventing childhood burns and scalds

Understanding how children typically burn and scald themselves is the first step toward prevention, say researchers from the United Kingdom.

They conducted a multicenter, cross-sectional study involving 1,215 children who presented to 1 of 9 UK facilities with an unintentional burn or scald. Slightly more than half (58%) had scalds; about one-third (32%) had contact burns; and the remainder had burns from other causes. About 18% were admitted to the hospital. The rest were treated in the emergency department or a burn assessment center. Almost three-quarters of the children (72%) were aged younger than 5 years, with the peak age of injury at around 1 year.

The most common scalding culprit was a cup or mug of a hot beverage, and the most common mechanism was a child trying to pull the hot item down from or off a surface.

In the 5- to 16-year-old age group, about half of all scalds were from hot water and about three-quarters were from spills. Scalds in the group of children aged younger than 5 years almost always affected the front of the body, such as the face, arms, and/or upper trunk. Older children more commonly had scalds on the lower trunk, legs, and hands.

With regard to contact burns, 81% of those occurring in children aged younger than 5 years were from touching hot things in the home, most often hair straighteners and curling irons, followed by oven/stove burners. Older children sustained more outdoor injuries. Two-thirds of all contact burns involved the hands.

According to the Burn Foundation, each year a quarter of a million children aged younger than 17 years are burned seriously enough to require medical attention. About 15,000 of those require hospitalization, and about 1,100 die. 

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