CARe Burn Scales

A burn injury of any size can have a significant psychological and social impact and can result in a number of ongoing challenges for the individual, and their families.

Its important for health professionals and researchers working with burns patients and their families to have a clear understanding of how their lives have been affected by the injury and any resulting scarring, in order to inform treatment decision making and to measure treatment progress.

The CARe Burn Scales are a set of burn-specific self-report Patient Reported Outcome Measures (PROMs) that can help health professionals and researchers to become aware of patients’ needs and therapeutic progress after a burn injury. 

The scales cover aspects of life including:

• Physical health and recovery after a burn
• Emotional well-being
• Social situations
• Work and education
• Relationships
• Trauma
• Body image
• Treatment
• Positive growth after a burn

For more information, and to download the CARe Burn Scales, go to https://careburnscales.org.uk/

We’d to have your feedback on the CARe Burn Scales – please complete our quick survey here.

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“Our service uses the CARe Burns Scales and we have found them remarkably helpful and informative to our patient treatment.”

Clinical Psychologist, NHS Burn Service

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Translated Versions

The CARe Burn Scales have also been translated and tested, following a rigorous process involving translation and back-translation. Versions are currently available in Finnish and other translations are in progress:   

For more details of the Finnish version, click here.

If you are interested in translating the CARe Burn Scales into another language, please contact us at CAR@uwe.ac.uk to discuss this.

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Podcast

You can hear more about this resource on this episode of the Appearance Matters podcast.

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The Research

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The CARe Burn Scales have been rigorously developed following a recommended, gold standard protocol with input from burns patients, their family members and health professionals across the UK. 

First, the team conducted some systematic reviews of existing measures that had been used in burns research and care – these reviews identified the need to develop a new set of burn-specific PROMs.

They then carried out a series of interview studies with burn patients, their families and burns health professionals to understand what should be included in the new PROMs to ensure they covered the issues that are most important to people who are affected by burn injuries. 

The team then created a set of PROMs, with measures specifically for adults, young people (aged 8-17 years) and children (aged 8 years and under) with burns, and their families/caregivers. A series of studies involving more than 900 people affected by burns then tested the new scales and demonstrated that they are suitable for use in burns care and research. A Finnish version of the adult scale has been developed and tested.

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Publications

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Griffiths, C., Rumsey, N., Armstrong-James, L., White, P., Pleat, J. A & Harcourt, D., (2015). Systematic review of patient reported outcome measures used in child and adolescent burn research, Burns. 41,2; 212-224.

Griffiths. C., Guest, E., White P., Gaskin, E., Rumsey, N., Pleat, J. & Harcourt, D.  (2017). A systematic review of patient reported outcome measures (PROMs) used in adult burn research, Journal of Burn Care & Research, 38(2):e521-e545.

Griffiths, C., Guest, E., Pickles, T., Hollen, L., Gerada, M., White, P., Tollow, P., & Harcourt, D. (2019). The development and validation of the CARe Burn Scale – Adult Form: a patient reported outcome measure (PROM) to assess quality of life for adults living with a burn injury. Journal of Burn Care and Research, 40, 3, 312–326.

Griffiths, C., Guest, E., Pickles, T., Hollen, L., Grzeda, M., Tollow, P. & Harcourt, D. (2020). The development and validation of the CARe Burn Scale: Child Form: a parent-proxy reported outcome measure assessing quality of life for children aged 8 years and under living with a burn injury, Quality of Life Research, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11136-020-02627-x

Lahdenpera, N-I., Repo, J.P., Aartolahti, E., Tollow, P., Griffiths, C., Harcourt, D., Vuola, J. & Lindford, A. (2021). The CARe Burn Scale – Adult Form: Translation and linguistic validation into Finnish https://doi.org/10.1016/j.burns.2021.02.017

Griffiths, C., Tollow, P., Cox, D., White, P., Pickles, T. & Harcourt, D. (2021). Testing the responsiveness of and defining minimal important difference (MID) values for the CARe Burn Scales: Patient-Reported Outcome Measures to assess quality of life for children and young people affected by burn injuries, and their parents/caregivers, European Burn Journal, 2, 4, 249-280.

Griffiths, C., Tollow, P., Cox, D., White, P., Pickles, T. & Harcourt, D. (2022).  The CARe Burn Scale – Adult Form: Identifying the responsiveness and minimal important difference (MID) values of a Patient Reported Outcome Measure (PROM) to assess quality of life for adults with a burn injury.  European Burn Journal, 3, 211–233. Griffiths, C., Pickles, T., Guest, E. & Harcourt, D. (2025). The validation of the ‘CARe Burn Scale: Parent/Caregiver Form’ – a patient reported outcome measure (PROM) using Rasch Measurement Theory (RMT) to assess quality of life for parents or caregivers supporting a child with a burn injury, European Burn Journal, 6(2), 22, https://doi.org/10.3390/ebj6020022

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The Team

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Catrin Griffiths, Diana Harcourt, Paul White, Pippa Tollow and Ella Guest

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Acknowledgements

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The CARe Burn Scales were developed in collaboration with people who have been affected by burn injuries (i.e. patients and family members), and health professionals working at NHS burn services across the UK.

We are very grateful to the following organisations that helped with the research to develop and test the CARe Burn Scales:

• Children’s Burns Trust
• Dan’s Fund for Burns
• Katie Piper Foundation
• Changing Faces

We would like to thank the following organisations for their support in funding the development and testing of the CARe Burn Scales:

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You might also find these resources useful

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• Hexi: Burn Injuries
• Supporting Children with Burns Website