The impact of race, gender, and preferred language on pain management in children and adolescents with long bone fractures
OA Version
Citation
Abstract
Thousands of children are treated for long bone fractures in emergency departments in the US, and forearm fractures are the most commonly observed in children. Pain management is essential to fracture management. Pain management options and treatment plans are available. While all children should receive the same approach to pain management, existing data demonstrates that this is not always the case, and disparities exist in the evaluation of pain and administration of analgesia in pediatric emergency departments in the US. Race and ethnicity, gender, and language barriers impact if and when analgesia is administered. Patient demographics similarly impact decisions about opioid administration, and there are significant differences in the type (NSAID vs opioid) of analgesia administered to minority and White patients. There is little information about preferred language and gender-based disparities affecting analgesia administration in the pediatric emergency department. Therefore, more investigation is required to understand better why these disparities exist and what can be done to resolve them. The goal of the PEMA study is to understand better how patients feel about the care they or their children received while being treated in the Pediatric Emergency Department (PED) at Boston Children’s Hospital and if they felt their race, ethnicity, gender, and language played a role.
Description
2024