Objectives: To study the incidence and outcome of burns in Norway in 2007, and to establish estimates for effective length of stay, mortality and economical costs.
Methods: Data from the Norwegian Patient Registry on all patients discharged from all somatic hospitals in Norway in 2007 with main or subsidiary diagnosis of burn injury (ICD-10: T20-31) were collected.
Results: Seven hundred and twenty-six patients (65.0% male) with acute burns were admitted to Norwegian hospitals in 2007, requiring 8157 in-hospital days and resulting in a mean length of hospitalization per burn case of 11.3 days (S.D. 15.2). The mean age of the patients was 26.9 years (S.D. 25.5), and the mortality was 2.1%. For children below 5 years of age the incidence of burns admitted to hospital was 82.5/100,000/year. The annual total cost for in-hospital burn care exceeded 10.5 million euros (2,200,000 euros/million inhabitants)
Conclusion: Compared to similar data from Norway (1992) the rate of admission for burns in 2007 (15.5/100,000/year) appeared as high as in 1992, whereas the mean length of stay was reduced by 26%. Children under the age of 5 had a seven times higher incidence compared the rest of the population.