title: Which of the abbreviated burn severity index variables are having impact on the hospital length of stay?
abstract: Quality control is an important tool ensuring continuous medical efficacy. Outcome scores, however, are unfavorable from a statistical point of view, are not meaningful for less severely injured patients, and may put the treating physicians under pressure to limit therapeutic efforts. In this study the variables of the abbreviated burn severity index (ABSI), primarily an outcome score, were used to predict length of hospital stay (HLS), a continuous quantitative variable reflecting treatment costs and incidence of complications even in less severely injured patients. For 365 patients a multiple linear regression analysis was used to evaluate the influence of the ABSI variables on HLS. Among survivors, age and total body surface area burned (TBSA) contributed significantly to HLS, whereas for nonsurvivors only TBSA significantly influenced HLS. Neither gender nor presence of full-thickness burn or inhalation injury showed a significant influence on HLS. The impact of age and TBSA on HLS might be used as a benchmarking system to evaluate quality of care. However, although HLS is probably widely dependent on regional health care systems, TBSA and age proved to be the only variables of the ABSI to correlate with HLS.
authors.affiliation: Department of Anesthesiology and General Intensive Care, Vienna Medical University, Austria.
authors.forename: Dorothea
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Andel
authors.forename: Lars-Peter
authors.initials: LP
authors.lastname: Kamolz
authors.forename: Monika
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Niedermayr
authors.forename: Klaus
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Hoerauf
authors.forename: Wolfgang
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Schramm
authors.forename: Harald
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Andel
mesh_terms: D015998:Abbreviated Injury Scale; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001317:Austria; D002056:Burns / Q000473:pathology*; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D007902:Length of Stay / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D016014:Linear Models; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D017741:Survivors