WASHINGTON, Sept. 3, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Children
with broken bones or joint dislocations in northern Israel emergency departments received equal
pain treatment, regardless of their ethnicity or the ethnicity of
the nurses who treated them, even during a period of armed conflict
between the two ethnic groups. An investigation of potential
disparities in pediatric emergency department pain relief in
northern Israel was published
online today in Annals of Emergency Medicine ("Emergency
Department Pain Management in Pediatric Patients with Fracture or
Dislocation in a Bi-Ethnic Population").
"The Israeli-Palestinian conflicts may be intractable, but in
the emergency department, all children are treated the same," said
lead study author Itai Shavit, MD,
of the Pediatric Emergency Department at the Rambam Health Care
Campus in Haifa, Israel. "Having a
nurse of the same or different ethnicity did not influence the rate
of analgesia, and that held true for the entire four years of the
study, including the 11-week period of armed conflict between
Palestinians and Israelis in 2014."
Of Arab children with pain scores between seven and 10 (out of
10), 99.05 percent received opioid therapy. Of Jewish
children with pain scores between seven and 10, 99.08 percent
received opioid therapy. Of Arab children treated by Jewish nurses,
99 percent received opioid pain relievers. Of Jewish children
treated by Arab nurses, 98.9 percent received opioid therapy.
During the 11-week period of armed conflict between Palestinians
and Jews in 2014, 100 percent of Arabic children received opioid
medication and 96 percent of Jewish children received opioid
medication. Jews are the majority population in northern
Israel, which is reflected in the
higher number of Jewish patients and nurses in the study.
"Inadequate pain relief in emergency departments is a recognized
problem, particularly among certain ethnic groups in the United States," said Dr. Shavit. "We
believe these good results are in part due to the high levels of
professionalism in the nursing staff."
Annals of Emergency Medicine is the peer-reviewed
scientific journal for the American College of Emergency
Physicians, the national medical society representing emergency
medicine. ACEP is committed to advancing emergency care through
continuing education, research, and public education. Headquartered
in Dallas, Texas, ACEP has 53
chapters representing each state, as well as Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia. A Government Services
Chapter represents emergency physicians employed by military
branches and other government agencies. For more information, visit
www.acep.org.
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SOURCE American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP)