Acute Pain Resolution After an Emergency Department Visit: A 14-Day Trajectory Analysis.

STUDY OBJECTIVE: The objective of the study is to evaluate the acute pain intensity evolution in emergency department (ED) discharged patients, using group-based trajectory modeling. This method identifies patient groups with similar profiles of change over time without assuming the existence of a particular pattern or number of groups.

METHODS: This was a prospective cohort study of ED patients aged 18 years or older, with an acute pain condition (≤2 weeks), and discharged with an opioid prescription. Patients completed a 14-day diary assessing daily pain intensity level (numeric rating scale of 0 to 10) and pain medication use.

RESULTS: Among the 372 included patients, 6 distinct post-ED pain intensity trajectories were identified. Two started with severe levels of pain; one remained with severe pain intensity (12.6% of the sample) and the other ended with a moderate pain intensity level (26.3%). Two other trajectories had severe initial pain; one decreased to mild pain (21.7%) and the other to no pain (13.8%). Another trajectory had moderate initial pain that decreased to a mild level (15.9%) and the last one started with mild pain intensity and had no pain at the end of the 14-day period (9.7%). The pain trajectory patterns were significantly associated with age, type of painful conditions, pain intensity at ED discharge, and opioid consumption.

CONCLUSION: Acute pain resolution after an ED visit seems to progress through 6 different trajectory patterns that are more informative than simple linear models and could be useful to adapt acute pain management in future research.