Epidemiological and Clinical Characteristics of Pediatric Burns at an Israeli Tertiary Medical Center- Focus on the Ultraorthodox Minority

Objective: The goal was to examine the demography, etiology, and clinical characteristics of moderate to severe burns injuries among Jewish Ultraorthodox children and to compare it to the general pediatric population.

Methods: A retrospective data registry was created for all pediatric patients 0-18 years of age who were admitted with burn injuries from January 1, 2015 through December 31, 2018. The diagnoses were codded by International Classification of Diseases 9 (ICD9) 940-949. The religious status classification was based on the home address of the child crossed with the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics database.

Results: Of 778 burns injury admissions to our pediatric tertiary medical center, 385 (49.5%) were hospitalized. Among the hospitalized children 212 (55%) were secular Jews, 135 (35%) were ultraorthodox Jews, and 38 (10%) were non-Jewish patients. The Total Body Surface Area percentage (TBSA%) of scald-type burns differed between groups, with ultraorthodox median TBSA% of 7% and secular median TBSA% of 5% (p<0.05). Among the ultraorthodox group, the median TBSA percentage during weekdays was 6%, as for weekends the TBSA% was 7.5% (p<0.05). Females demonstrated the greatest diversity between subgroups, during weekend ultraorthodox females median TBSA% was 10%, as for secular females TBSA% was 4.5% (p<0.05).

Conclusions: For ultraorthodox children the main burn mechanism is scalding at the kitchen. During weekend ultraorthodox girls suffer from higher incidence of burns and greater severity than ultraorthodox boys and secular children from both genders. This finding is associated with the ultraorthodox lifestyle and observing Shabbat.