Abbot Packard

Ethnic wait time differences in analgesic administration in the emergency department.

Although many studies have documented ethnic disparities in analgesia administration, few have dealt with the wait time for analgesia in the emergency department, despite the fact that the provision of timely and appropriate analgesia should be a primary goal in caring for patients. Inadequate analgesia has been reported for patients presenting with long bone fractures, and a body of evidence exists indicating that ethnic and minority patients may be receiving inadequate pain care when presenting to the emergency department for treatment of long bone fractures. The purpose of the present research was to determine whether wait time differences in pain treatment existed for ethnic and minority adults (18 years old or older) who were admitted to the emergency department suffering from long bone fractures using a quantitative retrospective design. Purposive sampling of medical records of 234 European-American, African-American, and Hispanic patients presenting with long bone fractures from two small Georgia hospitals were analyzed. Although Hispanic, European-American, and African-American patients in this study all reported substantial pain, a significant (p = .005) overall wait time difference was found between Hispanic and European-American patients, with Hispanic patients waiting an average of 102 minutes for the first dose of analgesia, and the European-Americans waiting an average of 67 minutes. Significant (p = .011) wait time differences were also found between Hispanics and European Americans when opioids were ordered and when there was a nurse notation of pain in the record (p = .029).

Striking Differences: The Impact of Moderate and High Trauma on Reading Achievement

This study explored the relationship between childhood traumatic exposure, such as violence and loss of a significant other, and reading achievement. With a sample of 163 urban elementary children (grades 2–5), the impact of traumatic events on 3 years of reading scores was examined. Results suggested that violence exposure had an adverse effect on reading scores and that there was a striking difference between students who experienced moderate exposure as compared to students with high exposure. However, both groups of students experienced a significant decrease in reading achievement. Discussion of these findings proposes an explanation for why reading achievement might be adversely affected by traumatic exposure and gives suggestions for teachers to utilize with those students identified as having been exposed to traumatic events.