Text messages improve pain management post-discharge from the paediatric emergency department

Recognition and alleviation of pain should be a priority when treating ill and injured children in the Emergency Department (ED). Optimising analgesia in paediatric patients post-discharge remains a challenge. The increasing accessibility of mobile phone technology worldwide offers new opportunities to communicate with families post-discharge. This study investigates whether text message reminders improve pain management in children post-discharge from the ED. Method: This was a prospective study of 50 children (aged 1–16 years) with fractures, discharged from the ED. An online automated service was used to send text messages to parents at 6 h and 30 h post-discharge. These served as reminders to administer analgesia. 25 parents received text message reminders and 25 parents received no messages. All parents were telephoned 48 hours post-discharge to ascertain the number of analgesia doses administered and the frequency of reported pain. Results: The mean number of analgesia doses administered to the text message group was 7.6 vs. 4.9 in the control group, p = < 0.05. In the text message group 0 children complained of pain frequently or constantly vs. 5 in the control group. 100% of parents in the text message group felt text messages were an effective reminder. Conclusion: This study demonstrates that sending text message reminders post-discharge significantly increases the number of analgesia doses administered, reduces the frequency of patients reporting pain and is an effective method of communicating with parents. With increasing accessibility of mobile phones worldwide this is a viable, cost-effective and reproducible method of optimising analgesia post-discharge from the Paediatric ED.

Abstract licence: CC BY-NC-ND

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