| The purpose of this quantitative, retrospective, project was to determine if pain reassessment was performed according to the guidelines established by the Agency for Health Care Research and Quality (AHRQ), within 30 minutes for IM and IV medications and 60 minutes for oral medications. During a two-month period, data was conveniently sampled from 100 charts. The initial pain rating was 8.15 using the NRS 0-10 scale. The average time from triage to analgesic administration was 50 minutes. All patients were given an analgesic initially and only 32 (95% CI=23% to 42%) patients were reassessed according to the AHRQ guidelines. The data revealed the compliance between gender was significant (Chi-Square p=.047). After initial analgesic administration, reassessment compliance for all females was 42% (N=21) compared to 22% (N=11) for all males. This study identified the need for further staff education on the importance of pain reassessment and compliance with AHRQ guidelines. |
