Pain is a common complaint in patients presenting to an Emergency Department (ED). Data show that timely delivery of pain relief in this setting remains a challenge. Adequate treatment of pain requires recognition and assessment. The Royal College of Emergency Medicine advocates for early pain assessment and reassessment post-analgesia; however, it does not specify how best to do this. Therefore, a review of existing literature is needed to identify which pain assessment tools have been shown to be useful in the ED.
This scoping review will use the Joanna Briggs Institute methodology. A search of PubMed, Embase, Cumulated Index in Nursing and Allied Health Literature, Web of Science, Scopus and the Cochrane Library will identify relevant studies published in English since January 2004. Studies will be included that recruit adults (aged 18 years and over) presenting to an ED with acute pain (duration under 3 months). Publications must assess or compare tools for measuring pain in an ED setting. Full-text articles published internationally will be considered. After duplicate removal, abstract screening and full-text analysis by two independent reviewers will identify relevant papers, using the inclusion criteria. Discrepancy resolution will be via a third reviewer. Pain measurement tools and their evidence will be extracted, collated and described. The findings will be reported according to Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses for Scoping Reviews.
Ethical approval is not required for this review. Published results will be shared with relevant parties interested in ED pain management. Potential next steps include patient involvement in the evaluation of pain assessment tools identified in this review and implementation into practice. The insights of patients with relevant lived experience in assessing these tools would be invaluable to the objective of improving pain management in the emergency setting.
This project is registered with the Open Science Framework accessible at https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/ENVPY.
To address the lack of accurate and accessible mental health medicines-information resources for children, young people and their parents/guardians using design thinking to co-design free-to-use, video resources tailored to this audience.
A multiphase qualitative case study using the Double Diamond model of Design Thinking: Discover, Define, Develop and Deliver. This included iterative prototyping, thematic analysis and public and patient involvement throughout.
Dublin, Ireland with online distribution of the final resources internationally through a free, open-access platform.
A multidisciplinary co-design team including two specialist mental health pharmacists, two academic pharmacists, five consultant psychiatrists, a psychiatric nurse, a youth content specialist, three youth activists and a parent representative.
26 co-designed, medicines-information videos were created, including versions for children (voiced by children), parents/guardians and young people. Videos feature storytelling formats with Bitmoji characters. Feedback from youth and parent collaborators guided design and content. Since launch, www.youthmed.info has had over 25 000 website views and more than 30 000 video views, with engagement from over 91 countries. The resources are also linked on national and international clinical and charity platforms.
Youth Med.Info addresses a gap in accessible, accurate mental health medicines-information by placing users – children, young people, parents/guardians and clinicians—at the centre of its design.