Abstract
Older adults are less likely than younger adults to receive analgesic treatment during
emergency department visits. Whether older adults are less likely to receive analgesics
during protocolized prehospital care is unknown. We analyzed all ambulance transports
in 2011 in the state of North Carolina and compared the administration of any analgesic
or an opioid among older adults (aged 65 and older) versus adults aged 18 to 64. Complete
data were available for 407,763 transports. Older men were less likely than younger
men to receive an analgesic or an opioid regardless of pain severity. Among women
with mild or moderate pain, older women were less likely than younger women to receive
either form of pain treatment, but among women with more severe pain (pain score 8
or more), older women were more likely than younger women to receive pain treatment.
Further, among women with mild or moderate pain, the oldest patients (aged 85 and
older) were the least likely to receive any analgesic or an opioid, but among women
with severe pain the oldest patients were the most likely to receive treatment. Further
research is needed to assess the generalizability of this interaction between age,
gender, and pain severity on pain treatment.
Perspective
During prehospital care in North Carolina in 2011, older adults were generally less
likely to receive pain treatment. However, older women with severe pain were more
likely to receive treatment than younger women with severe pain. These results suggest
an interaction between age, gender, and pain severity on pain treatment.
Key words
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: June 03, 2013
Accepted:
March 25,
2013
Received in revised form:
March 24,
2013
Received:
December 21,
2012
Footnotes
T.F.P.-M. is funded by a National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant KL2TR000084. M.A.W. is funded by NIH grant UL1TR000083. S.A.M. is funded by NIH grant R01AR056328. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NIH. Data were provided by the North Carolina Office of EMS (NC OEMS) and the North Carolina EMS (NC EMS) Data System. The NC OEMS and the NC EMS Data System supports state, regional, and local EMS and health care–related service delivery from a patient care, resource allocation, and regulatory perspective. This manuscript has been reviewed by NC EMS Data System investigators for scientific content and consistency of data interpretation with previous NC EMS Data System publications, and significant comments have been incorporated prior to submission for publication. No conflicts of interest exist for the remaining authors.
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© 2013 American Pain Society. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
