Abdominal Pain, Back Pain, Chest Pain, Headache, Joint Pain, Muscle Pain, Neck Pain
Conditions
Keywords
Emergency Room
Brief summary
The proposed research will be a prospective, observational study to test the hypothesis that anchoring will affect verbal pain scores in the emergency department. There will be a small retrospective aspect to this study to obtain patient satisfaction ratings.
Detailed description
The investigators will evaluate a convenience sample of patients presenting to the ED with a complaint of pain. Patients will be consented for participation and will fill out a brief survey concerning the current visit in the ED. There will be two forms of the survey. Participants will be randomly assigned to one of the two survey forms. Participants will first be asked if their pain score for this visit is greater than or less than an anchor number provided. In this survey, the investigators will use 20 and 80 as our anchoring numbers. The participants will then have a follow up question asking them to estimate their pain score on a 0-100 scale. Investigators will then perform a chart review to determine patient satisfaction scores for that specific visit to determine if the anchoring effect has any input on patient satisfaction scores.
Interventions
OTHERMeasurement of Pain
Patients will fill out a brief survey concerning the current visit to the ED.
Sponsors
CHRISTUS Health
Study design
Observational model
COHORT
Time perspective
PROSPECTIVE
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
ALL
Age
18 Years to No maximum
Healthy volunteers
Yes
Inclusion criteria
* 18 years of age or older * Presenting to the ED with a chief complaint of any type of pain
Exclusion criteria
* Under 18 years of age * Refusal to consent * Incarcerated patients * Pregnant patients * Unable to complete survey secondary to clinical instability, severe pain, or disorientation determined by a study physician
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Utilization of a questionnaire to measure the mean pain scores between two intervention groups based on the numeric pain score scale | Through study completion, an average of 1 year | A questionnaire will be used to measure pain scores by utilizing a numeric pain scale (0-100) and measure the effect of anchoring bias on pain scores in the Emergency Department. It is hypothesized that a lower pain score anchor will lead to a lower reported pain score by the patient. |
Secondary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| An analysis to examine the influence of anchoring on patient satisfaction for patients with common chief complaints related to pain in the Emergency Department. It is unknown if anchoring affects a patient's overall satisfaction. | Through study completion, an average of 1 year | Patients receive Press-Ganey questionnaire to evaluate their visit to the Emergency Department. We will measure if the anchoring pain score affects the patients overall satisfaction with their Emergency Department care. |
Countries
United States
Outcome results
None listed