None listed
Conditions
Brief summary
It is well known that pain management in emergency departments (EDs) could often be improved. A recent study demonstrated that the provision of 'adequate analgesia' (defined as a reduction in the patient's triage pain score of at least 2 and to a level <4 [0-10 scale]) is significantly associated with a high level of patient satisfaction with their pain management. The study concluded that this definition of 'adequate analgesia' could be used as a clinical target for ED staff to aim for. However, this study was only able to demonstrate an association between the provision of 'adequate analgesia' and patient satisfaction. Despite this, the strength of the association is very strong and the 'adequate analgesia' target is about to be rolled out into ED clinical practice. The proposed study aims to take advantage of this proposed roll out by determining if the use of the 'adequate analgesia' target (the intervention) will result in improved patient satisfaction.
Interventions
The study intervention will be the introduction of an 'adequate analgesia' target into clinical practice for a period of 6 months. In this study, 'adequate analgesia' is defined as that providing a decrease in the patient's triage pain score of at least 2 points and to a level that is less than 4 points (scale 0-10). Emergency Department staff will use this definition as a target to guide the management of their patient's pain. Any treatment used (including drug, dose, mode of administration, et
The study intervention will be the introduction of an 'adequate analgesia' target into clinical practice for a period of 6 months. In this study, 'adequate analgesia' is defined as that providing a decrease in the patient's triage pain score of at least 2 points and to a level that is less than 4 points (scale 0-10). Emergency Department staff will use this definition as a target to guide the management of their patient's pain. Any treatment used (including drug, dose, mode of administration, etc.) will be at the discretion of the treating clinician.
Sponsors
Australasian College for Emergency Medicine Clinical Trials Group
Study design
Allocation
Randomised controlled trial
Intervention model
Parallel
Primary purpose
Treatment
Masking
Open (masking not used)
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
All
Age
18 Years to No maximum
Healthy volunteers
No
Inclusion criteria
-age 18 years or more -moderate/severe pain (triage pain score of at least 4)
Exclusion criteria
-suspected cardiac chest pain (pain is treated differently) -triage category 1 (often treated differently) -inability to communicate a pain score (dementia, delirium, significant illness, poor English) -patients being treated by a study investigator (to avoid a Hawthorne affect) -inability to follow up (eg. no telephone)
Outcome results
None listed