The use of analgesia for trauma patients at CHUK Emergency Department (ED)

Abstract

Introduction Pain is an unpleasant experience and represents the main complaint of visits to the emergency department (ED) for patients seeking healthcare. This study was conducted in order to determine the time to analgesia for trauma patients present at Emergency Department with pain score above >4(moderate and severe pain), at University Teaching Hospital-Kigali (CHUK) which is the tertiary referral public hospital in Kigali, Rwanda. Methods This is an observation, review of inpatients chats, single-centered study of 260 patients done at the emergency department of tertiary level hospital CHUK in Kigali/Rwanda from July 2018 to December 2018. We determined the timeliness pain management for trauma patients presented at emergency department with pain above 4 (moderate and severe pain) and how the treatment it differs relates to various categorical predictor variables such as age, gender, occupation, and insurance status. Results: Male (77.31%) were the predominant gender and the majority of them were between ages 31-45 years (31.92%), jobless Children represented (27.69%) and patients 70% of patients had Mutuel for health insurance. We calculated odds ratios for a variety of predictor variables and did not find any significant association with time to analgesia.

Conclusions The majority of patients consulting the ED at CHUK did not receive pain medication treatment within an appropriate time course. Trauma is a public health concern in Rwanda and the management of traumatic pain is often a concern for health workers. We recommend strategies to increase analgesia delivery, educating medical personnel on diagnosis and treatment of pain at appropriate times and to improve documentation of pain management in the ED.