Internal and emergency medicine
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Oligoanalgesia in Emergency Departments (ED) is known to be common. The aim of our study is to determine how often patients in pain desire and receive analgesics while in the ED. Four main outcomes have been considered: desire of analgesics, administration of analgesics in the ED, correlation between initial analgesic administration and triage priority scores, patients' satisfaction at discharge during the ED visit. ⋯ On the other hand, patients with pain localized in lower extremities and in nose or ear less probably received analgesia. In conclusion, the underuse of analgesics in the ED continues to represent a problem and our study demonstrates that half of all ED patients in pain desire analgesics and that only half of those wanting analgesics receive them. Patients that desired and received analgesic treatment represented the group with a higher degree of satisfaction.