Impact of an acute pain service on pain outcomes with combat-injured soldiers at camp bastion, afghanistan
Pain Medicine, 06/29/2012
Buckenmaier CT et al. – Findings from this quality of pain care study show that aggressive multimodal analgesia interventions by an acute pain service (APS) in a combat support hospital (CSH) is associated with decreased pain intensity and increased pain relief.
Methods- Pain outcomes data were collected at Camp Bastion from 71 soldiers sustaining major combat injuries followed by an APS.
- The sample was predominantly male (98.6%) and Caucasian (98.8%) with a mean age 25.4 years ± 5.4 (range 18–45).
- Regional nerve blocks were performed in 51 (71.8%) and epidurals placed in 11 (15.5%) of the cases.
- Repeated measures analysis of variance showed a statistically significant decreases in pain intensity (numeric rating scale from 0 for “none” to 10 for “as bad as you can imagine”) over the three data collection points; first 3, 4–6, and 7–10 hours (F = 133.35; degrees of freedom [df; 1,68]; P < 0.001).
- Mean percent pain relief (0% “no relief” to 100% “complete relief”) increased significantly over time (F = 193.12; df[1,69]; P < 0.001) with scores 31.29% ± 20.3 (initial 3 hours), 74.86% ± 27.5 (4–6 hours), and 83.14% ± 19.3 (7–24 hours).
- Overall, the perceived quality of pain control by soldiers was high.
