- NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Patients in the emergency department
expect fast delivery of pain medication, but the existing system means
they often must wait an hour or longer for pain relief, researchers report.
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- Dr. David E. Fosnocht and colleagues
surveyed 458 emergency department patients about their expectations on
pain medication delivery. While the patients said they thought, on average,
that 23 minutes was a reasonable amount of time to wait for pain relief,
their average wait was actually 78 minutes, according to a report in the
American Journal of Emergency Medicine.
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- Survey participants were asked to report
pain intensity at the time of their arrival at the hospital and at the
time of discharge, and how long they thought was a reasonable time to wait
for pain medication. The researchers reviewed patients' charts to find
out how long they actually waited.
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- Patients with injured extremities had
the shortest wait for pain relief, and were given the drugs 62 minutes,
on average, after they arrived in the emergency department. But these patients
thought that 20 minutes would be a reasonable waiting time.
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- Those with abdominal pain, who also considered
20 minutes to be a reasonable waiting time, had to hold on for 111 minutes
to receive pain relief. Patients with back pain waited an average of 78
minutes for pain medication, while those with headache waited 96 minutes.
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- One explanation for the long waits, according
to the report, may be that abdominal pain or headache require more complex
evaluation and emergency staff may be reluctant to medicate these ailments
until a diagnosis has been established.
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- ``Forty-five percent of patients received
pain medication and 70% had their needs for pain relief met,'' the researchers
note. Patients who felt their pain relief needs had been met reported higher
satisfaction with care.
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- ``Our current sequential system of triage,
physician evaluation, ordering of pain medication, and nurse administration
of medication does not meet patient expectations for timeliness of delivery
of pain medication,'' Fosnocht and colleagues conclude.
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- They call for more investigation of factors
that contribute to patient expectations for pain relief so emergency department
physicians can better meet patients' needs.
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- SOURCE: American Journal of Emergency
Medicine 2001;19:399-402.
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