Journal Article

PO-0278Management Of Pain In Acute Presentations To A Tertiary Paediatric Emergency Department (ped)

Mullen, S, Fitzsimmons, A

2014

Overview

Background and aimsTo review pain assessment and management in our PED.MethodsWe reviewed the filmsy for patients who were coded as soft tissue injury, fracture or burn over a 6 day period in June 2013 and compared this to standards set by College of Emergency Medicine (CEM) in the UK.ResultsNumber of patients = 6798% did not have a pain score recorded from triage. No recorded pain score from any medical personnel.49% received analgesia with 82% receiving paracetamol alone and 15% receiving oramorph. Of those receiving analgesia, 70% did so within 20 min of arrival and 85% within first hour.There was no documented re-assessment of pain scores although 6% of patients did receive further analgesia.ConclusionThe results hi-lighted a need for re-education of nursing and medical staff on the benefits of pain scores. Coupled with this re-education there will be a review of the current PED filmsy with a greater emphasis on pain scales, pain scores and prompts to re-score.There are good points to be taken from the data. 70% of patients received analgesia within 20 min of presentation compared to 43% from the CEM annual audit in 2012. 6% of patients also received further analgesia to manage their pain. This may support the theory that although pain assessment is occurring it is not being documented.