First aid and initial management for childhood burns in Vietnam--an appeal for public and continuing medical education.

A prospective study to investigate first aid and initial management for 247 paediatric burn patients from 1 June, 2004 to 31 June, 2006 at the Burn Intensive Care Unit, National Institute of Burns (NIB), Hanoi. Data were collected from documents from referring hospitals and direct interview of patients, relative and transport team as guided by the International Society for Burn Injury (ISBI) and the World Health Organization (WHO). Results showed that cooling the burn surface by cold water was applied in 27.17%. Among 132 patients transferred from other hospitals, fluid resuscitation was given in 102 patients (77.28%) before transferring and over a half of these patients were not given intravenous fluid during the time of transfer, especially for children under 1 year of age (p<0.05). Dressings were applied in 36.36% of transferred patients. Burn surface area was accurately diagnosed in only 21.90% of total cases. In conclusion, first aid and initial management in Vietnam are still far from ideal. Further public education and continuing medical education should be applied in Vietnam.