Table 1.
Demographic and health characteristics of the burn and non-injury cohorts
| Characteristics | No injury N (%) |
Burn injury N (%) |
p Value |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total | 123 399 | 30 997 | |
| Demographic | |||
| Indigenous status (yes) | 2993 (2.4) | 4481 (14.5) | <0.001 |
| Social disadvantage quintiles* | |||
| Quintile 1 (most disadvantaged) | 14 597 (12.0) | 6579 (21.6) | <0.001 |
| Quintile 2 | 28 339 (23.4) | 9878 (32.4) | |
| Quintile 3 | 22 142 (18.2) | 6354 (20.8) | |
| Quintile 4 | 21 671 (17.9) | 3833 (12.6) | |
| Quintile 5 (least disadvantaged) | 34 609 (28.5) | 3857 (12.6) | |
| Remoteness† | |||
| Major city | 88 278 (72.8) | 15 810 (51.7) | <0.001 |
| Inner regional | 11 725 (9.7) | 3360 (11.0) | |
| Outer regional | 11 653 (9.6) | 4958 (16.2) | |
| Remote | 5897 (4.9) | 3434 (11.2) | |
| Very remote | 3697 (3.0) | 3011 (9.8) | |
| Health status | |||
| Any comorbidity‡ | 4691 (3.8) | 3131 (10.1) | <0.001 |
| Prior admission for nervous system disease§ | 1474 (1.2) | 1732 (5.6) | <0.001 |
| Burn injury characteristics | |||
| %TBSA | |||
| <20% minor | 14 854 (48) | ||
| ≥20% severe | 911 (3) | ||
| Unspecified | 15 232 (49) | ||
| Burn depth¶ | |||
| Full thickness | 4390 (14) | ||
| Partial thickness | 12 307 (40) | ||
| Erythema | 5335 (17) | ||
| Unspecified | 9609 (31) | ||
| Site¶ | |||
| Head and neck | 6386 (21) | ||
| Trunk | 7262 (23) | ||
| Upper limbs/hands | 13 144 (42) | ||
| Lower limbs/feet | 10 537 (34) | ||
| Eyes | 2303 (7) | ||
| Respiratory tract or other internal organs | 624 (2) | ||
| Multiple sites | 1237 (4) | ||
| Unspecified site | 904 (3) | ||
*SEIFA socio-economic disadvantage quintiles; missing values 1.3% burn, 1.7% no injury.
†ARIA+remoteness classification; missing values 1.4% burn, 1.8% no injury.
‡Any comorbidity based on Charlson comorbidity index with a 5-year look-back period.
§Principal diagnosis admission for nervous system disease with a 5-year look-back period.
¶Multiple burn sites and depths may be coded.
ARIA, Accessibility/Remoteness Index for Australia; SEIFA, socio-economic indexes for areas; TBSA, total body surface area.