Factors associated with out-of-hospital adult pain management in New South Wales, Australia

Abstract

There is evidence in multiple health care contexts that perception of pain by patients, and provision of analgesia by clinicians, are influenced by multiple factors including but not limited to age, gender, genetics, race, socioeconomic status (SES) and past experience. Present in an estimated 20-53% of cases in Australia, pain is one of the most common health complaints to which paramedics are dispatched. Paramedics have an array of pharmacological analgesics within their scope of practice to alleviate pain, ranging from nonsteroidal anti-inflammatories through to opioids. Despite the frequency of presentation there is a lack of recent evidence exploring factors associated with provision of analgesia by paramedics. The primary aim of this study was to explore associations between provision of pharmacological analgesia and variables available in routinely collected clinical record and dispatch data representing patient factors (age, gender, and SES), clinical factors (pain severity), and operational factors (rurality, time of day, day of week). This retrospective observational study suggested the presence of associations between analgesia administration and each operational, clinical, and patient variable. The data confirms the subjective complexity of analgesic decision-making and identifies practice areas that through focused education and increased awareness, might constitute opportunities for improvement in quality of analgesic care.

Date of Award	2024
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Western Sydney University
Supervisor	Paul Simpson (Supervisor)