Paucity of clinical practice guidelines for the rehabilitation of burn survivors

Model System:

Burn

Reference Type:

Journal article

Accession No.:

J84466

Journal:

American Journal of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation

Year, Volume, Issue, Page(s):

2020 , 99, 8, 739-751

Publication Website:

Abstract:

Study reviewed clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) for burn injury to assess the extent to which they encourage practices that result in optimal care at all phases of treatment. CPGs provide an efficient route from research to practice because they follow a prescribed, vetted process for evidence collection. A literature search was performed using the terms “Burns AND CPGs AND Rehabilitation.” Three reviewers determined whether guideline development followed an established vetting process. Rehabilitation was defined as treatment to improve, maintain, or restore human function and facilitate recovery. The original search identified 160 articles and, after adding the term “functional outcome,” 62 remained for full-text review, of which 21 were eligible. When articles were scored for inclusion of both rehabilitation AND function or functional outcome AND guideline vetting, seven articles remained. One was community based. Nine articles had no recorded vetting process but addressed rehabilitation as an outcome. Findings indicate that there is a paucity of CPGs relevant to clinical rehabilitation for burn survivors. This is likely a result of very few published intervention trials, rare randomized controlled trials addressing rehabilitation, absence of data to establish an evidence base for practice recommendations, an inadequate number of community-based intervention trials, and little patient input. The authors conclude that rehabilitation of burn survivors will improve if more people gain skills in meeting the needs of people with burn injury. An increase in trained professionals may lead to an increase in intervention trials and research to establish evidence for CPGs.

Author(s):