Thematic narrative review highlights pain management and telerehabilitation benefits in pediatric burn survivors, suggesting value-based approaches for better outcomes.
Pediatric burns in Saudi Arabia are predominantly household scalds in young children, causing long-term disability from scarring, contractures, pain/itch, psychosocial distress, and disrupted schooling. This thematic narrative review (2010–2025) synthesizes global and regional evidence, appraises outcome measures with attention to Arabic availability, and translates findings into Vision 2030–aligned policy actions. Evidence supports early, multidisciplinary care anchored in standardized outcome tracking. Pressure-garment therapy remains inconclusive, whereas virtual reality reduces procedural pain and telerehabilitation serves families distant from tertiary centers. A minimum national outcome set is proposed spanning scar quality (VSS, POSAS), joint range of motion, age-appropriate pain and itch scales (FLACC/FPS-R/NRS), HRQoL (PedsQL, PROMIS), and school reintegration. Embedding these indicators in electronic records and registries—with risk adjustment and linkage to utilization and cost—would enable benchmarking, value-based purchasing, and equitable service planning and access. Implemented at scale, this framework can deliver measurable gains in function, participation, and family well-being across the Kingdom.
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Ghandurah et al. (2026) studied this question.
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