Acute Pain Management and Perceptions among Emergency Healthcare Workers: Feedback from Greece

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Pain remains the most common reason patients seek assistance in emergency rooms. However, the level of pain management during emergencies, and subsequently during disasters and mass casualty incidents, remainsdisturbing. METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted using a structured anonymous questionnaire among a random sample of doctors working in different tertiary hospitals of Athens and of rural regions. The data were analysed using descriptive statistics and statistical significance tests via R-Studio, version 1.4.1103. RESULTS: The aforementioned sample yielded101 questionnaires. Results show suboptimal knowledge and attitudes regarding acute pain management among emergency healthcare providers in Greece. The majority of responders are unaware of the term multimodal analgesia (52%), of newer pain treatment methods (59%), they have not attended pain management seminars (84%), nor are they aware of pain treatment protocols in their workplace (74%). Participants appeared to disregard successful pain relief due to time constraints (58%), while leaving certain parts of the population (children under 3 years of age −75%, pregnant women-48%) significantly undertreated in terms of analgesia. Demographic correlations showed that clinical experience and pain management education were associated with older and more experienced emergency healthcare workers. Specialties with a previous core training containing pain education (anaesthesiologists, emergency physicians) again showed better results in the majority of the questions. CONCLUSIONS: Educational programs/seminars along with standardised algorithms should be developed in order to cover existing needs and misconceptions.