• Michael A Frakes, Wendy R Lord, Christine Kociszewski, and Suzanne K Wedel.
• LIFE STAR/Hartford Hospital, PO Box 5037, Hartford, CT 06102-5037, USA.
• Am J Emerg Med. 2009 Jan 1; 27 (1): 49-54.

ObjectivePain relief is a key out-of-hospital patient care outcome measure, yet many trauma patients do not receive prompt analgesia. Although specialty critical care transport (CCT) teams provide analgesia frequently, successfully, and safely, there is still a population of CCT patients to whom analgesia is not offered. We report the factors associated with non-administration of analgesia and with analgesic effect in trauma patients cared for by CCT teams.MethodsThis is a retrospective review of consecutive transport records for nonintubated trauma patients with self-reported pain during specialty CCT care. Patient demographics, CCT interventions, clinical traits, and pain self-reports are measured. Means comparisons are made with a univariate analysis of variance, and odds ratios (ORs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) are reported for between-group comparisons.ResultsOf the 209 enrolled patients, 169 (80.9%; 95% CI, 75.6%-86.2%) were treated (147 received analgesia and 22 offered analgesia but refused). In patients with pain scale documentation (n=145), self-reported pain on a scale from 0 to 10 decreased from 6.8+/-2.8 to 3.3+/-2.4 (PConclusionThe identified factors may represent opportunities for CCT teams to optimize analgesic treatment.

21 keywords...

hide…