Paediatric burns in central Finland between the 1960s and the 1980s.

This study comprised 359 paediatric burn-injury cases. The patients were collected from the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, taking 4 years from each decade. These children were treated exclusively in the Paediatric Surgery Department in the University Hospital of Tampere, Finland. We were interested in the backgrounds and living environments of our patients as well as the children themselves. Special attention was paid to risk factors and methods for prevention. Scalds at home and in the sauna rooms constituted the largest groups of injuries. The number of hospitalized patients has slightly decreased during the past three decades, whereas the proportion of girls has increased. The mortality was very low (0.28 per cent), a single case. This study shows that 80 per cent of born injuries in children occurred under the age of 4 years and over 80 per cent of all burn injuries involved hot liquids; modern kitchen technology has not significantly reduced this factor. The epidemiological profile of paediatric burns changed from the 1960s to the 1980s less than expected.