Early Childhood Burn Prevention in Home Environment through Story Book

Objective: To statistically find the most common causes of burns by identifying risk factors and age classification.

Method: The quantitative study was conducted with the help of old patients’ files from The House of Charity department at Shalamar Hospital, Lahore, Pakistan. The sample consisted of a total of 362 acute burn patients treated from July to Dec 2017.

Results: The results highlighted a hot tea is the leading cause of burns in children under the age of six. This is due to the carelessness of parents and family members drinking tea when the child is in their lap or near a hot cup of tea within the child’s reach.

The causes were divided into hot tea, hot water, hot liquid, hot milk, hot object, open fire.  After categorizing the causes of burns, the data was divided into age classifications, the results can be seen in fig. 4. Hot tea makes up 65% of burns in children from birth to a year old.  The total causes of burns in children ages 1 to 4 years old, hot liquids make up a total of 68% and 75%. At the age of 4 to 6 years old, burns caused by hot liquids begin to decrease by 51% but continues to be the highest cause compared to any other category.

Discussion: It is estimated that almost half a billion cups of hot tea prepared and is consumed in Pakistan every day. Tea is the comfort and socializing beverage of Pakistan.  Society being unaware that a hot cup of tea burns like fire makes the situation dangerous.  With this attitude preparation, transportation, presentation and consumption of hot tea lead to catastrophic burns and life threatening situations on a daily basis.

The best way to treat a burn is to prevent it from happening. The study is used to design and launch a Burn Prevention campaign to determine the knowledge of the parents about burn hazards in home environment, to increase awareness about burn hazards, to reduce the incidence of burn injuries and to teach first aid to reduce the severity of burns.

The goal is the change the risk behavior in precautionary measure. Therefore, a picture based illustrated story book was created to educate the children and their families in order to minimize the risk and incidences of child burn injuries.

It is focused on an attempt to change community risky behavior by impacting predisposing, enabling, and reinforcing factors of the burn hazard hot tea

Conclusion: The children’s story book of Izza’s Tea Party was published to increase the awareness of burn hazards, reduce the incidence and severity of burn injuries, and teach first aid. The book focuses Five Steps Away from hot beverages.  It is a grassroots interactive campaign with messages through storytelling, playful games and role playing  through home enviroment.