Burn Care: Educational Program for Nurses professional Development

Abstract

Burn inju ries are the most devastating injuries that can occur to a human body. Almost burn can affect every organ in the body, so, it con sid ered one of the severe injuries that the bod y indure and still survi ve. Burn s represen t th e third l eading cause of accedental death in a ll age grou ps (Parsons, 1997).

Th e burn i njury defined by Alspach, (1998) as an injury resulting in tiss ue loss or ti ssue da mage Th is tissue inju ry due to coagul ation of cellular proteins as a result of heat produced from thermal, el ectri cal, chemi cal , or radiation energy. The degree of coagul ation d epend s on : temperature of the injuring agen t, duration of exposure to the injuring agent, area exposed to the injuring agent. Mea n whil e, it is defined by Zakus, (1995) as a wound cau sed by contact w ith a fire (dry heat), steam and sca ldi ng water (moist heat), el ectri city, chemical s, radi ation, or li ghtning.

According to the ava ila ble statistics i n Egypt (1980) it was reported by Ibrahim, (1990) that the death rate d ue to bu rn inju ry was 3.3\100.000 popul a tion . In th e United States, t wo milli on peopl e seek medi ca l atten ti on every yea r, of these, 70.000 a re hospi ta lized wi th severe burn inj uri es (Parsons, 1997).

Extensi ve bu rn injury is catastrophi c both ph ysi ca ll y and psychol ogi ca lly for the v i ctim and his fa mil y. The person who su ffers burn injury presents a h ea l th ca re crisis because the skin influ ences th e cosm eti c appeara nce of the indiv idua l. So, the burn inju ries can resul t in disturbance of th e patient's body image and self-esteem. Often, the b urn v i ctim is extremel y an xio us abo u t t h e ph ys i ca l effects of the burn injury a nd requi res emoti ona l su pport from th e time of injury through o ut care. (Kitt, et al., 1995)