Do burn patients need burn specific multidisciplinary outpatient aftercare: research results

In a cross-sectional study of patients 12-24 months after a burn injury. th e need for a multidisciplinary burn specific outpatient clinic was examined in relation to aftercare consumption, physical and psychological problems. Four hundred and twenty nine patients were assessed by means of three self -report questionnaires: IES, SCL(PTSD-SL) and BSHS-SV-S. Results indicated that the current aftercare providers are almost exclusively medical doctors and that a quarter of the patients are dissatisfied with received aftercar e. However, dissatisfaction about current aftercare was nor the only criter ion to determine whether patients wanted burn-specific aftercare, The sever ity of psychological and physical problems predicted interest in a multi-di sciplinary outpatient clinic. Self-reported psychological and physical prob lems were found to be related to one another. Univariate logistic regressio n outcomes suggested that patients with serious psychological and physical problems are more likely to express interest in a burn-specific outpatient clinic, but that, in a multivariate regression analysis, physical problems and psychological problems measured on the SCL(PTSD-SLEEP) do not contribut e to the prediction of the interest in a burn-specific outpatient clinic an ymore once symptoms of PTSD are taken care of. Results suggest that psychol ogical aftercare for burn patients needs to be improved. Possible steps to improve aftercare to meet patients' needs are discussed. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd and ISBI. All rights reserved.