Background: Despite the positive dynamic changes in medicine and science, injuries continue to be the dominant cause of death among people under 45 years of age. Children's injuries are particularly dangerous as they can lead to hypovolemic shock, disability or even death. EMS uses opioid and nonopioid analgesics in order to provide relief to patients suffering from pain. The aim of this work is to analyze the types of pharmacological substances used in children in pre-hospital conditions.
Methods: The research tools included medical documentation of the emergency medical services in Poland. The analysis included 68,441 medical emergency treatment forms from 2016-2017, from which 464 interventions for children after trauma were selected. The general patient profile, characteristics of the event site, type of injuries suffered, type of intervening EMS, pharmacotherapy being used, as well as vital signs (GCS, RTS, HR, NiBP) were subject to assessment. The χ2 independence tests were performed, considering the results as statistically significant for p<0.05.
Results: There were 354 instances of BEMS (Basic Emergency Medical Services - without a doctor) and 110 instances of SEMS (Specialist Emergency Medical Services - with a doctor) sent to the emergency site. The mean age was 10.8 (SD ± 4.84) years. Boys were subject to intervention more often than girls (n=283 vs. n=181). Analgesics were administered in case of 49 (10.56%) patients only. NSAIDs (Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflummatory Drugs) were the analgesics of choice, which were used in 25 patients (50%), while opioid analgesics were used in 10 patients (20.40%). Analgesia was mostly used in patients with lower limb (34.69%) and upper limb (30.61%) injuries. The lowest percentage of analgesic use was observed in patients with head and neck injuries (3.06%). There was a significant relationship demonstrated between the type of EMS and the use of analgesics (χ2=6.330; p=0.012).
Conclusions: Analgesia with EMS in children with injuries is critically insufficient. NSAIDs are the most commonly administered drugs in pre-hospital conditions. Head and torso injuries reduce the percentage of drugs administered by EMS. The EMS teams with no doctors (BEMS) are significantly more likely to use anesthetics, compared to SEMS.