To investigate the survival of patients with small area burns after discharge, and explore the related risk factors that affect their quality of life.

All 123 burn patients with small area admitted to Department of Burn Surgery, First Affiliated Hospital of Naval Medical University from January 2017 to December 2018 were selected, and their demographic characteristics and burn disease related data were collected, including age, gender, education background, marital status, payment method, burn area, burn type, inhalation injury, tracheotomy, length of hospital stay and length of stay in ICU and deformity. Follow-up by telephone and short-form 36 item health survey questionnaire (SF-36) scale, selfrating depression scale (SDS), impact of event scale-revised (IES-R) scale and coping with burns questionnaire (CBQ) scale were used to investigate the patients. According to the Chinese quantitative standard and evaluation reference value of SF-36, 8 aspects of SF-36 score in the study were evaluated. Spearman correlation analysis was used to explore the correlation between clinical indicators and two scoring systems (SDS score and CBQ scale score) in burns patients. The clinical indexes of burn patients were included in univariate and multivariate regression analysis to explore the independent risk factors of depression and coping ability in burn patients after discharge.

The average age of patients with small area burns included in this study was (47.3 ± 16.4) years old, mainly male (69.1%). The median of total burn area was [6.0 (1.0, 17.0) % total body surface area (TBSA)]. The main burn sites were facial burns (50 cases, 40.7%) and hand burns (88 cases, 39.0%). There were 19 cases (15.4%) with inhalation injury, and 7 cases (5.7%) underwent tracheotomy. The median hospital stay was 10 (5, 19) days and the median ICU stay was 0 (0, 5) days. There were 22 cases (17.9%) with deformity in the stage of rehabilitation. SF-36 scale score showed that, compared with the Chinese quantitative standard and evaluation reference value of SF-36 scale, the scores of physical functions [(75.43±25.60) scores)], vitality [(48.78±12.25) scores] and emotional role [(52.71 ± 11.55) scores] of the patients in this study were lower than those of the reference group. According to the IES-R scale, 73.2% (90 cases) of the patients showed different degrees of stress, including severe stress [(2 cases (1.7%)], moderate stress [(28 cases (22.8%)], mild stress [(60 cases (48.8%)] and subclinical stress [(33 cases (26.8%)]. SDS scale showed that 21.1% (26 cases) of the patients showed different degrees of depression, including severe depression [(2 cases (1.6%)], moderate depression [(8 cases (6.5%)] and mild depression [(16 cases (13.0%)]. CBQ showed that most of the patients [(109 cases, 88.6%)] performed well in coping with problems after burn, a small number of patients performed moderately [(11 cases, 8.9%)], and several patients performed excellently [(3 cases, 2.4%)]. Correlation analysis showed that facial burn was positively correlated with SDS score (r= 0.345, P=0.020), and negatively correlated with CBQ score (r=-0.444, P=0.002). Payment method (OR: -0.508, 95%CI: -15.256, -3.070) and facial burn (OR: 0.533, 95%CI: 5.131, 18.938) were independent risk factors for post discharge depression. Facial burn (OR: -0.568, 95%CI: -25.576, -6.313) was an independent risk factor for coping ability after discharge.

The quality of life in patients with small area burns after discharge, especially the face burn patients, still need to be concerned about medical and social problems.