Anchoring Patients Pain Scores in the Emergency Department

Completed

• Conditions: Abdominal Pain; Joint Pain; Chest Pain; Headache; Muscle Pain; Neck Pain; Back Pain
• Interventions: Other: Measurement of Pain

• Registration Number: NCT04717518
• Lead Sponsor: CHRISTUS Health

Brief Summary

The proposed research will be a prospective, observational study to test the hypothesis that anchoring will affect verbal pain scores in the emergency department. There will be a small retrospective aspect to this study to obtain patient satisfaction ratings.

Detailed Description

The investigators will evaluate a convenience sample of patients presenting to the ED with a complaint of pain. Patients will be consented for participation and will fill out a brief survey concerning the current visit in the ED. There will be two forms of the survey. Participants will be randomly assigned to one of the two survey forms. Participants will first be asked if their pain score for this visit is greater than or less than an anchor number provided. In this survey, the investigators will use 20 and 80 as our anchoring numbers. The participants will then have a follow up question asking them to estimate their pain score on a 0-100 scale. Investigators will then perform a chart review to determine patient satisfaction scores for that specific visit to determine if the anchoring effect has any input on patient satisfaction scores.

Study Timeline

• Study Start: 2020-08-24
• Study First Submitted: 2020-11-18
• Study First Submitted QC: 2021-01-16
• Study First Posted: 2021-01-22
• Primary Completion: 2021-11-12
• Study Completion: 2021-11-12
• Status Verified: 2022-03
• Last Update Submitted: 2022-03-29
• Last Update Posted: 2022-04-07

Recruitment & Eligibility

• Status: COMPLETED
• Sex: All
• Target Recruitment: 108

Inclusion Criteria

• 18 years of age or older
• Presenting to the ED with a chief complaint of any type of pain

Exclusion Criteria

• Under 18 years of age
• Refusal to consent
• Incarcerated patients
• Pregnant patients
• Unable to complete survey secondary to clinical instability, severe pain, or disorientation determined by a study physician

Study & Design

• Study Type: OBSERVATIONAL
• Study Design: Not specified

Arm && Interventions

Group	Intervention	Description
Higher Anchor Survey	Measurement of Pain	Patients will likely rate their pain higher.
Lower Anchor Survey	Measurement of Pain	Patients will likely rate their pain lower.

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Utilization of a questionnaire to measure the mean pain scores between two intervention groups based on the numeric pain score scale	Through study completion, an average of 1 year	A questionnaire will be used to measure pain scores by utilizing a numeric pain scale (0-100) and measure the effect of anchoring bias on pain scores in the Emergency Department. It is hypothesized that a lower pain score anchor will lead to a lower reported pain score by the patient.

Secondary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
An analysis to examine the influence of anchoring on patient satisfaction for patients with common chief complaints related to pain in the Emergency Department. It is unknown if anchoring affects a patient's overall satisfaction.	Through study completion, an average of 1 year	Patients receive Press-Ganey questionnaire to evaluate their visit to the Emergency Department. We will measure if the anchoring pain score affects the patients overall satisfaction with their Emergency Department care.

Trial Locations

Locations (1)

CHRISTUS Spohn Health System; 🇺🇸 Corpus Christi, Texas, United States