Out-of-hospital assessment and treatment of adults with atraumatic headache.
Journal of the American College of Emergency Physicians Open · 2020-01-21 · Observational study
Abstract
OBJECTIVE: Little is known about the presentation or management of patients with headache in the out-of-hospital setting. Our primary objective is to describe the out-of-hospital assessment and treatment of adults with benign headache. We also describe meaningful pain reduction stratified by commonly administered medications. METHODS: This retrospective evaluation was conducted using data from a large national cohort. We included all 911 responses by paramedics for patients 18 and older with headache. We excluded patients with trauma, fever, suspected alcohol/drug use, or who received medications suggestive of an alternate condition. We presented our findings with descriptive statistics. RESULTS: Of the 5,977,612 emergency responses, 1.1% (66,235) had a provider-documented primary impression of headache or migraine and 52.5% (34,763) met inclusion criteria. An initial pain score was recorded for 73.5% (25,544) of patients, and 58.5% (14,948) of these patients had multiple pain scores documented. Of the patients with multiple pain scores documented, 53.8% (8037) of patients had an initial pain score >5. Of these, 7.1% (573) were administered any medication. Among patients receiving a single medication, Fentanyl was the most commonly administered (32.1%, 126). As a group, opioids were the most commonly administered class of drugs (38.9%, 153) and were associated with the largest proportion of clinically significant pain reduction (69.3%, 106). Dopamine antagonists were given least frequently (9.9%, 39) but had the second largest proportion of pain reduction (43.6%, 17). CONCLUSION: Out-of-hospital pain scores were documented infrequently and less than one in five patients with initial pain scores >5 received medication. Additionally, adherence to evidence-based guidelines was infrequent.