Tehran University Medical Journal

Background: Burns are one of the most devastating forms of trauma worldwide. In the elderly, flame and scald burns, or scalds alone, are the major causes of burns, occur at home, particularly in the kitchen and bathroom. Because elderly burned patients suffer from greater morbidity and mortality than younger patients with similar burn extents, preventing burns is paramount to continuing functionality and quality of life. Burns are largely explainable by characteristics of both the individual and the physical environment. Our study aims to analyses the epidemiologic characteristics of burn in the elderly (above 60 years old) in Iran.
Methods: Records of elderly patients (aged 60 and older) admitted with acute burns to the Burn Center of the Shahid Motahari Hospital, Tehran, Iran, between March 2007 and March 2014 was carried out. Patient demographics, etiology of burn, mechanism of injury, burn extent, mortality, severity of burn, length of stay in hospital, and outcomes were reviewed. The information was analyzed by SPSS software, version 18 (SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, USA). T-test, oneway anova and K square were used.
Results: A total of 374 elderly patients were admitted. Majority of the patients were men 231 (61.8%) and the number of women were 143(38.2%). The most common etiologies were scalds (20.3%) and (oil-benzine-gasoline) (19.8%). The mean age of the patient was 71.5 years, which was average in women (72) and men (70.5 years). There was a statistically significant difference between the mean age in both male and female groups, so that the mean age of women was significantly higher than men (P=0.004). There was a significant correlation between gender and (etiology, hospital stay-mortality) and between treatment outcome and (etiology and motivation) and between motivation and etiology (P<0.001).
Conclusion: Boiling water was the main cause of burning in older women. Diminished senses, concentration disorders, slower reaction time, reduced mobility, and bedridden states may decrease elder's ability to identify fire and also to escape harm.

Background: Medical errors are one of the biggest problems of the health system in countries. Identifying the factors responsible for these errors is crucial to designing optimal strategies to reduce such occurrences. The aim of this study was to investigate the type and nature of medical errors.
Methods: In this cross-sectional descriptive study, all documented medical errors that occurred between March 2021 and February 2022 at Firoozgar Educational and Medical Center were thoroughly examined. The data collection involved reviewing records from various departments within the center to ensure a comprehensive analysis of error types. The extracted data were processed and analyzed using SPSS v.22 software, allowing for statistical evaluation and identification of potential patterns or trends in medical errors over the specified period.

Results: A total of 214 cases were reviewed. 45.3% of the recorded medical errors occurred in the morning shift, 20.6% in the evening shift and 34.1% in the night shift. The highest number of medical errors was reported by nurses (40.7%), followed by physicians (16.8%) and paramedics (11.7%). The etiology of most medical errors was systemic errors (63.6%) followed by pharmacological errors (15.4%) and technical errors (13.1%) and the most reported systemic errors were of insufficient supervision. Most of the patients who had medical errors were admitted to the inpatient wards (40.7%) and later to the surgical wards (17.3%) and ICU (12.6%). 62.1% of medical errors did not cause any specific complication and in 33.2% of cases, mild complication, 10.7% moderate complication and 3.3% severe complication occurred for patients. 62.1% of medical errors had no consequences for anyone, and in 36.9% of cases, the consequences of errors were to the patient and 1% of the consequences of errors were to the organization and employees. Conclusion: Most of the reported medical errors were performed by nurses and were uncomplicated errors. Establishing transparent and accurate self-reporting systems is essential to identify medical errors of all employees.