Burns : journal of the International Society for Burn Injuries
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Two studies are described in this paper. In the first study 225 acutely, severely burned patients were retrospectively investigated as to admission blood alcohol level and history of chronic alcohol abuse. The influence of further risk factors, circumstances and therapeutic data was studied, in particular the influence of gender, full-thickness burns, smoke inhalation injury, smoking, length of total and ICU stay, and suicide attempt. ⋯ Five patients had positive drug levels and five had positive alcohol levels. Five patients had a history of chronic drug and/or alcohol abuse. This incidence of alcohol and drug abuse supports the findings of our retrospective study.