Peer-reviewed article
The Early Childhood Development of Pediatric Burn Patients
Maxime D Cuijpers, Moniek Akkerman, Martin G. A. Baartmans, Paul P. M. van Zuijlen, Anouk Pijpe ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This study tracked the early childhood development of 38 Dutch children who suffered burn injuries before age 2.5 years, comparing their progress to national developmental standards. Children were assessed using the Dutch Development Instrument before and after their burns, with burn sizes ranging from 1% to 36% of body surface area. The findings showed that 95% of children met age-appropriate developmental milestones on time, and their average development score was slightly above the Dutch average, regardless of burn severity. The results suggest that non-severe burns do not typically delay early childhood development in this age group.
Key points
- 95% of pediatric burn patients passed age-appropriate developmental milestones at the target age
- Mean age-standardized D-score was +0.49 SD above the Dutch average
- Development did not vary significantly by child sex or burn size
- Burn injuries ranged from 1.0% to 36.0% of total body surface area
- Study population comprised children with non-full thickness burns aged up to 2.5 years
Limitations
The study is limited to children in the Netherlands with non-full thickness burns and does not include children with more severe burn injuries; it provides no long-term follow-up data beyond the immediate post-injury period or information about psychological and social impacts of burns.
Abstract
Our study aimed to provide a description of the early childhood development of pediatric burn patients relative to Dutch reference values, using both pre- and post-burn data from the Dutch Development Instrument and the D-score. Data from the Dutch Development Instrument were used to calculate the D-score and age-standardized D-score. Similar to a growth chart, the D-score was used to plot pediatric burn patients’ development relative to Dutch reference values for their age. Pediatric burn patients’ (n = 38) median age at the time of injury was 1.0 (1.0–2.0) years old. Burn size ranged from 1.0% to 36.0% of the total body surface area. Ninety-five percent (± 6.0%) of pediatric burn patients passed each of the age-appropriate developmental milestones at the target age. The mean age-standardized D-score was just above the Dutch average (+0.49 SD [0.18, 0.80]) and did not vary depending on sex (p = 0.06) or burn size (p = 0.41). In conclusion, among pediatric patients aged up to two-and-a-half years old, with non-full thickness burns, development was on track relative to the Dutch reference values. Our findings offer valuable first insights into the early childhood development of pediatric burn patients and may alleviate some parental concerns.
Findings the Hub has extracted
Each claim below is labelled by its type of design and links back to this report.
- Intervention
- Standard clinical management of pediatric burn injuries (no specific intervention described); developmental tracking using the Dutch Development Instrument and D-score
- Population
- 38 pediatric burn patients aged up to 2.5 years at time of injury with non-full thickness burns
Key finding
95% of patients passed each age-appropriate developmental milestone at target age