Foreign-National Burn Patients in a Border-Region Burn Center

Burn injuries are an important clinical and public health problem associated with morbidity, mortality, prolonged hospitalization, intensive care requirement, surgical treatment, and healthcare resource utilization. The epidemiology and outcomes of burn injuries may vary according to age, sex, socioeconomic conditions, cultural factors, occupational exposure, living environment, and access to healthcare services.

Burn centers located in border regions may serve not only the local population but also foreign-national patients due to migration, displacement, war-related injuries, and cross-border referrals. Therefore, evaluating the clinical characteristics and outcomes of foreign-national burn patients in such regions may provide important information for healthcare resource planning, intensive care capacity, surgical workload, infection control measures, and preventive public health strategies.

This retrospective cohort study will include patients hospitalized with a diagnosis of burn injury at the Burn Center of Gaziantep City Hospital between October 2023 and June 2026. The primary comparison will be performed between Turkish citizen burn patients and foreign-national burn patients. The main objective is to evaluate whether these two groups differ in terms of demographic characteristics, burn severity, clinical course, and in-hospital outcomes.

The following variables will be collected retrospectively from routine medical records: age, sex, nationality status, burn etiology, burn type, burn localization, total body surface area burned, inhalation injury, intensive care unit admission, mechanical ventilation requirement, sepsis, surgical treatment requirement, number of operations, length of hospital stay, discharge status, transfer to another center, and in-hospital mortality. Burn severity will also be assessed using the Abbreviated Burn Severity Index score, revised Baux score, and Ryan-based modified clinical score when the required data are available.

All data will be obtained from patient files, discharge summaries, operative notes, intensive care records, and the hospital information management system. The study is retrospective and observational. No intervention will be assigned by the investigators, and no additional diagnostic test, treatment, or follow-up procedure will be performed. Patient-identifying information will not be used in the analysis, and all data will be analyzed using anonymized or coded datasets.

Inclusion criteria

Patients hospitalized and treated with a diagnosis of burn injury at the Burn Center of Gaziantep City Hospital between October 2023 and June 2026.

Patients with a confirmed diagnosis of burn injury in patient files, discharge summaries, or hospital information management system records.

Patients whose nationality status can be classified as Turkish citizen or foreign-national according to hospital records.

Patients with available basic demographic, clinical, and in-hospital outcome data.

Patients of all age groups and both sexes.

Exclusion criteria

Patients treated outside the predefined study period. Patients without a confirmed diagnosis of burn injury. Patients evaluated only in the outpatient setting without hospitalization. Patients with missing nationality data. Patients with insufficient demographic or clinical outcome data for analysis. Duplicate records related to the same burn event; only the first hospitalization will be included.

Patients evaluated only for consultation without hospitalization at the Burn Center of Gaziantep City Hospital.

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