Patient's perception of pain on admission and discharge from the emergency department

Patients presenting to the emergency department have a common complaint of pain. Whether admitted to the hospital or discharged to home, patients are leaving the emergency department in a higher level of pain than would be considered tolerable or comfortable. Pain can be a major impediment to an adequate quality of life. Unrelieved or chronic pain causes anxiety, depression, sleep disturbances, decreased self-esteem and self-worth, inactivity, altered family dynamics, financial stress and an increase in the number of health-care visits. The purpose of this study was to evaluate patients' perception and report of pain in the ED from the time of arrival to the time of discharge. The sample consisted of 63 females and 62 males from an ED of an urban hospital in Trenton, New Jersey. The mean age for the males was 40 years, and the mean age for the females was 41 years. The pain level of the participants was measured by the use of a visual analogue scale at the time of arrival and at the time of discharge from the ED. A paired t-test for related samples revealed that the VAS scores decreased from 5.90 to 3.38 (p = .000).