Impact of the Use of the Scale ALGOPLUS® on the Prescriptions of Analgesics in Emergency Department on Patients of 75 Years Old or More

• Conditions: Pain
• Interventions: Other: pain in elderly patients

• Registration Number: NCT02258503
• Lead Sponsor: University Hospital, Clermont-Ferrand

Brief Summary

The pain of the elderly is even often unrecognized or trivialized and ignored in spite of its big frequency: the chronic pain affects 50 % of the elderly living at home, 49 to 83 % of those living in institution and 80 % of this population at the end of life.

So in the elderly, the noxious character of the pain is more pregnant than at the young adult. The echo on the acts of the everyday life is fast, the activities decrease, coming to deteriorate the isolation and the dependence: the echo on the psychic state is frequent and the pain is a part of the cause of a confusional state. Finally, the presence of a pain distorts considerably the quality of life and can modify the state general as the desire of life.

The evaluation of the pain appeals to the same strategy as to the younger subject but with some specificities, related more to the pathologies associated with the ageing than with the real age. For that purpose, the investigators have first of all scale of self-assessment as the numerical scale which is adapted to estimate the acute and chronic pains but this scale presents a bias because, certain patients do not express spontaneously their pain and this one must be attentively looked for in case of modification of behavior.

So scales of hetero-evaluation were elaborated to solve the difficulties of detection and to care the pain of the elderly. One of these is the scale Algoplus® (5 items which allow within one minute a good quality evaluation whatever is the place of care) whose objective is the observation of the behavioral changes caused by the acute pain in elderly having communication disorders.

Due to the demographic evolution, emergency departments are more and more frequently a place of consultation of the elderly. Indeed, the elderly represent approximately 10 to 20 % of all the passages in emergency department and 50 % of the patients hospitalized during the passage in the reception of Emergency department are elderly. Elderly care is difficult for a certain number of reasons (vulnerability, accumulation of pathologies and treatments). So, in this context, the evaluation of the presence of pain and its care are difficult in particular at the elderly with communication disorders.

In a preliminary study in the emergency department of the Hospital of Clermont-Ferrand, on 700 patients of more than 75 years old admitted in April 2012, 32 % had a prescription of analgesic while 13 % only had a real quotation of the pain.

The aim of the investigators study is to analyze if the systematic introduction of the scale Algoplus® in the evaluation of elderly during its entrance to emergency department could modify the prescription of analgesic.

Detailed Description

First period of the study :

Evaluation of the pain of elderly patient admitted in the emergency department by numerical scale and then taken care according to the usual practice of the emergency department.

A Clinical Research Associate will collect the quotation of pain by numerical scale and the analgesics treatments prescribed and their posology and route of administration.

This data collection must be realized for 100 elderly patients of 75 or more years old admitted the Emergency department during one month.

Training period :

Training of the emergency physicians in the use of the Algoplus® scale.

Second period of the study :

Evaluation of the pain of elderly patient admitted in the emergency department by numerical scale and by Algoplus® scale then taken care according to the usual practice of the emergency department.

A Clinical Research Associate will collect the quotation of pain by numerical scale and by Algoplus® scale and the analgesics treatments prescribed and their posology and route of administration.

This data collection must be realized for 100 elderly patients of 75 or more years old admitted the Emergency department during one month.

Study Timeline

• Study Start: 2013-01
• Status Verified: 2014-10
• Primary Completion: 2014-10
• Study Completion: 2014-10
• Study First Submitted: 2014-10-03
• Study First Submitted QC: 2014-10-06
• Last Update Submitted: 2014-10-06
• Study First Posted: 2014-10-07
• Last Update Posted: 2014-10-07

Recruitment & Eligibility

• Status: UNKNOWN
• Sex: All
• Target Recruitment: 200

Inclusion Criteria

• Patients admitted in emergency department for any pathologies,
• Patients of 75 or more years old

Exclusion Criteria

• Patients of less than 75 years.

Study & Design

• Study Type: OBSERVATIONAL
• Study Design: Not specified

Arm && Interventions

Group	Intervention	Description
algoplus scale	pain in elderly patients	Evaluation of the pain of elderly patient admitted in the emergency department by numerical scale and by Algoplus® scale then taken care according to the usual practice of the emergency department.
numerical scale	pain in elderly patients	Evaluation of the pain of elderly patient admitted in the emergency department by numerical scale and then taken care according to the usual practice of the emergency department.

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Collection of the rate of prescription of analgesic treatments	at day 1

Secondary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Collection of the score of the scale Algoplus®	at day 1
Collection of the score of quotation of pain by numerical scale (score from 0 to 10)	at day 1
Collection of prescription of analgesic	at day 1
Collection of the prescription of analgesic by class according to the scale of the WHO	at day 1

Trial Locations

Locations (1)

CHU de Clermont-Ferrand; 🇫🇷 Clermont-Ferrand, France