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Importance: Several pharmacologic options exist for the management of acute pediatric pain; however, their comparative effectiveness remains uncertain., Objective: To assess the relative benefits and harms of pharmacotherapy for acute pediatric pain through a network meta-analysis of randomized clinical trials., Data Sources: Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, Medline, Embase, CINAHL, Web of Science, and Scopus to October 2023., Study Selection: Trials that enrolled children (aged <18 years) with acute pain and randomized them to receive a pharmacologic analgesic vs an alternate analgesic or placebo were included., Data Extraction and Synthesis: Pairs of reviewers independently reviewed abstracts, extracted data, and assessed risk of bias of eligible trials. A frequentist random-effects model was used for all meta-analyses, and the certainty of evidence was assessed for treatment effects using the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development, and Evaluation approach., Main Outcomes: The primary outcomes were pain severity (range, 0-10 cm using a visual analog scale; minimally important difference [MID], 1 cm), need for rescue medication, symptom relief, and adverse drug events., Results: A total of 41 trials involving 4935 children were included. High- to moderate-certainty evidence found that compared with placebo, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) (weighted mean difference [WMD], -1.29; 95% CI, -1.89 to -0.70; modeled risk difference [RD] for achieving the MID, 16%), ketamine (WMD, -1.12; 95% CI, -2.09 to -0.14; modeled RD for achieving the MID, 14%), and mid-high potency opioids (WMD, -1.19; 95% CI, -1.83 to -0.55; modeled RD for achieving the MID, 15%) reduced pain. Only NSAIDs reduced the need for rescue medication (relative risk [RR], 0.31; 95% CI, 0.14 to 0.68; modeled RD, 16% fewer patients). Neither NSAIDs (RR, 0.69; 95% CI, 0.31 to 1.55) nor acetaminophen (RR, 0.63; 95% CI, 0.21 to 1.87) increased the risk of short-term gastrointestinal adverse events. All other comparisons showed moderate-certainty evidence of little to no difference from placebo or were supported by low/very low-certainty evidence., Conclusions and Relevance: Compared with placebo, NSAIDs, ketamine, and mid- to high-potency opioids are effective in reducing acute pediatric pain. NSAIDs provide the greatest benefits and least harm, suggesting that they should be the first-line therapy for acute painful conditions in children.

Background: Action on the social determinants of health is important to strengthen primary health care and promote access among underserved populations. We report on findings from stakeholder consultations undertaken at one of the Canadian sites of the Innovative Models Promoting Access-to-Care Transformation (IMPACT) program, as part of the development of a best practice intervention to improve access to primary health care. The overarching objective of this qualitative study was to understand the processes, barriers, and facilitators to connect patients to health enabling community resources (HERs) to inform a patient navigation model situated in primary care., Methods: Focus groups and interviews were conducted with primary care physicians, and community health and social service providers to understand their experiences in supporting patients in reaching HERs. Current gaps in access to primary health care and the potential of patient navigation were also explored. We applied Levesque et al., (2013) access framework to code the data and four themes emerged: (1) Approachability and Ability to Perceive, (2) Acceptability and Ability to Seek, (3) Availability and Accommodation, and Ability to Reach, and (4) Appropriateness., Results: Determinants of access included patient and provider awareness of HERs, the nature of the patient-provider relationship, funding of HERs, integration of primary and community care services, and continuity of information. Participants' perspectives about the potential scope and role of a patient navigator provided valuable insight for the development of the Access to Resources in the Community (ARC) navigation model and how it could be embedded in a primary care setting., Conclusion: Additional consultation with key stakeholders in the health region is needed to gain a broader understanding of the challenges in caring for primary care patients with social barriers and how to support them in accessing community-based primary health care to inform the design of the ARC intervention., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

A short-cut review of the available medical literature was carried out to establish whether virtual reality was an effective method for pain control during medical procedures. After abstract review, fifteen papers were found to answer this clinical question. The author, date and country of publication, patient group studied, study type, relevant outcomes, results and study weaknesses of these papers are tabulated. It is concluded that there is insufficient high-quality research to answer this question., (© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2020. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ.)

Objectives: Many patients discharged home from the emergency department (ED) require urgent outpatient consultation with a specialty service. We sought to identify the best- and worst-performing services with regard to time to outpatient consultation, the proportion of patients lost to follow-up, the rate of related return ED visits prior to consultation, and common strategies used by our top-performing clinics., Methods: We conducted a health records review of The Ottawa Hospital ED visits during four 1-week periods. All consecutive adult outpatient consultation requests were included for chart review and were followed up to 12 months. Outcome measures included demographics, referral attendance rates, incomplete referrals, return ED visits, and time intervals. Services with at least 15 consultation requests were included for data analysis and qualitative mapping of their referral processes., Results: Of the 963 patients who met inclusion criteria, 803 (83.4%) attended their appointment, while 160 (16.6%) were lost to follow-up. The overall median time to successful consultation was 9 days (IQR = 2-27). 92 (9.6%) patients returned to the ED with a related complaint. The top-performing clinics included ophthalmology, orthopedics, and thrombosis (median = 1, 8, 1 days; incomplete consultation = 3%, 4%, 6%; return ED visits = 0%, 6%, 2% respectively). The bottom-performing clinics included otorhinolaryngology, neurology, and gynecology (median = 47, 39, 27 days; incomplete consultation = 50%, 41%, 37%; return ED visits = 11%, 15%, 26%, respectively). Processes incorporated by top-performing clinics included reserving appointment slots for emergency referrals, structured referral forms, and centralized booking., Conclusions: We found a substantial variability in both the waiting times and reliability of outpatient referrals from the ED. Top-performing clinics incorporate common referral processes., Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest., (Copyright © 2019 Nicholas Prudhomme et al.)