Emergency medicine journal : EMJ
-
Randomized Controlled Trial Clinical Trial
The use of pre-cannulation local anaesthetic and factors affecting pain perception in the emergency department setting.
To determine whether the use of subcutaneous local anaesthetic (lignocaine) is associated with a reduction in cannulation pain in the emergency department setting. ⋯ The use of lignocaine before cannulation reduced cannulation pain in the emergency department setting. Other factors examined did not influence pain perception.
-
To improve the time taken for children arriving to the accident and emergency (A&E) department in pain to receive analgesia. Delivery within 30 minutes of triage was taken as an achievable goal. ⋯ The introduction of a simple Paediatric Pain Protocol has improved the time taken to deliver analgesia to children arriving in this A&E department.
-
To assess how frequently and adequately information relating to the possibility of non-accidental injury (NAI) is documented and considered by doctors assessing pre-school children with burns and scalds in the accident and emergency (A&E) department, and to determine the effect of introducing a routine reminder mechanism into the A&E notes, coupled with an improved programme of NAI education and awareness. ⋯ Prevailing awareness and documentation regarding the possibility of NAI was found to be poor, but a programme of intervention combining education and the use of a reminder checklist improved both awareness and documentation of NAI, as well as referral rates for further assessment. This strategy may prove applicable to children of all ages and injury types, reducing the number of cases of child abuse that are overlooked in the A&E department.