Health-related quality of life 6 months after burns among hospitalized patients: Predictive importance of mental disorders and burn severity

• A prospective follow-up study; health-related quality of life (HRQoL) at 6 months.
• A cohort of consecutive acute hospitalized burn patients (n = 107).
• HRQoL measures: RAND-36, EQ-5D and 15D.
• HRQoL at 6 months after acute burn is relatively good, among women not so good.
• Psychiatric disorders, predicted HRQoL at 6 months better than %TBSA.

RationaleMajor burns are likely to have a strong impact on health-related quality of life (HRQoL). We investigated the level of and predictors for quality of life at 6 months after acute burn.MethodsConsecutive acute adult burn patients (n = 107) admitted to the Helsinki Burn Centre were examined with a structured diagnostic interview (SCID) at baseline, and 92 patients (86%) were re-examined at 6 months after injury. During follow-up 55% (51/92) suffered from at least one mental disorder. The mean %TBSA was 9. TBSA of men did not differ from that of women. Three validated instruments (RAND-36, EQ-5, 15D) were used to evaluate the quality of life at 6 months.ResultsAll the measures (RAND-36, EQ-5, 15D) consistently indicated mostly normal HRQoL at 6 months after burn. In the multivariate linear regression model, %TBSA predicted HRQoL in one dimension (role limitations caused by physical health problems, p = 0.039) of RAND-36. In contrast, mental disorders overall and particularly major depressive disorder (MDD) during follow-up (p-values of 0.001–0.002) predicted poor HRQoL in all dimensions of RAND-36. HRQoL of women was worse than that of men.ConclusionSelf-perceived HRQoL among acute burn patients at 6 months after injury seems to be mostly as good as in general population studies in Finland. The high standard of acute treatment and the inclusion of small burns (%TBSA < 5) in the cohort may partly explain the weak effect of burn itself on HRQoL. Mental disorders strongly predicted HRQoL at 6 months.