Discordance between patient-reported and actual emergency department pain management

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: To determine patient knowledge of the nature of their pain management in the ED. METHODS: This was a planned sub-study of data collected during a randomised, controlled trial of the nature of the informed consent process in a single ED. Patients aged ≥18 years, with a triage pain score of ≥4, were enrolled. Forty-eight hours post-ED discharge, patients were asked if they had declined analgesia or if a range of pain management options had been administered. The primary outcome was discordance between the patient report and the ED report (proportion of cases where these reports differed). RESULTS: Outcome data were collected on 655 patients. There was significant discordance for all..