IMPACT OF AGEON PAIN PERCEPTION FOR TYPICAL PAINFUL DIAGNOSES IN THE EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT

Background: Age-related differences in pain perception have been demonstrated in experimental settings but have been investigated scarcely and without valid scale in the clinical framework. Objectives: To examine the effect of age on pain perception for recognized painful diagnoses encountered in the emergency department (ED). Methods: A post-hoc analysis of real-time archived data was performed in a tertiary urban and a secondary regional ED. We included all consecutive adult patients (>= 18 years) with the following diagnosis at discharge: renal colic, pancreatitis, appendicitis, headache/migraine, dislocation and extremities fractures, and a pain evaluation of >= 1 (0-10, verbal numerical scale) at triage. The primary outcome was to compare for each of these diagnoses the level of pain intensity between four age groups (18-44; 45-64; 65-74; 75+ years). Results: A total of 15,670 patients (48% women) were triaged with a mean pain intensity of 7.7 (SD=2.0). Women exhibited greater pain scores than men for pancreatitis, headache/migraine, and extremity fracture. Renal colic, pancreatitis, appendicitis, and headache/migraine showed a linear decrease in pain scores with age whereas dislocation and extremity fractures did not present age differences. Mean differences in pain intensity scores between young adults (18-44 years) and patients aged >= 75 years were 0.79 (95% confidence interval [95% CI] 0.5-1.1) for renal colic, 1.1 (95% CI 0.7-1.4) for pancreatitis, 0.70 (95% CI 0.2-1.2) for appendicitis, and 0.86 (95% CI 0.6-1.1) for headache/migraine. Conclusion: Older patients perceive similar pain for dislocation and extremity fractures and less for visceral and headache/migraine pain; however, these age differences may not be clinically important. (C) 2016 Elsevier Inc.