Anchoring Patients Pain Scores in the Emergency Department

March 29, 2022 updated by: Landry Dorsett, DO, CHRISTUS Health
The proposed research will be a prospective, observational study to test the hypothesis that anchoring will affect verbal pain scores in the emergency department. There will be a small retrospective aspect to this study to obtain patient satisfaction ratings.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

The investigators will evaluate a convenience sample of patients presenting to the ED with a complaint of pain. Patients will be consented for participation and will fill out a brief survey concerning the current visit in the ED. There will be two forms of the survey. Participants will be randomly assigned to one of the two survey forms. Participants will first be asked if their pain score for this visit is greater than or less than an anchor number provided. In this survey, the investigators will use 20 and 80 as our anchoring numbers. The participants will then have a follow up question asking them to estimate their pain score on a 0-100 scale. Investigators will then perform a chart review to determine patient satisfaction scores for that specific visit to determine if the anchoring effect has any input on patient satisfaction scores.

Study Type

Observational

Enrollment (Actual)

108

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

  • United States
    • Texas
      • Corpus Christi, Texas, United States, 78404
        • CHRISTUS Spohn Health System

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

18 years and older (Adult, Older Adult)

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Genders Eligible for Study

All

Sampling Method

Non-Probability Sample

Study Population

Study subjects include patients presenting to the Emergency Department at CHRISTUS Spohn Shoreline with a chief complaint of pain.

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • 18 years of age or older
  • Presenting to the ED with a chief complaint of any type of pain

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Under 18 years of age
  • Refusal to consent
  • Incarcerated patients
  • Pregnant patients
  • Unable to complete survey secondary to clinical instability, severe pain, or disorientation determined by a study physician

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

Cohorts and Interventions

Group / Cohort
Intervention / Treatment
Lower Anchor Survey
Patients will likely rate their pain lower.
Other: Measurement of Pain
Patients will fill out a brief survey concerning the current visit to the ED.
Higher Anchor Survey
Patients will likely rate their pain higher.
Other: Measurement of Pain
Patients will fill out a brief survey concerning the current visit to the ED.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Utilization of a questionnaire to measure the mean pain scores between two intervention groups based on the numeric pain score scale
Time Frame: Through study completion, an average of 1 year
A questionnaire will be used to measure pain scores by utilizing a numeric pain scale (0-100) and measure the effect of anchoring bias on pain scores in the Emergency Department. It is hypothesized that a lower pain score anchor will lead to a lower reported pain score by the patient.
Through study completion, an average of 1 year

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
An analysis to examine the influence of anchoring on patient satisfaction for patients with common chief complaints related to pain in the Emergency Department. It is unknown if anchoring affects a patient's overall satisfaction.
Time Frame: Through study completion, an average of 1 year
Patients receive Press-Ganey questionnaire to evaluate their visit to the Emergency Department. We will measure if the anchoring pain score affects the patients overall satisfaction with their Emergency Department care.
Through study completion, an average of 1 year

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

CHRISTUS Health

Investigators

  • Principal Investigator: Landry Dorsett, DO, CHRISTUS Spohn Health System

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start (Actual)

August 24, 2020

Primary Completion (Actual)

November 12, 2021

Study Completion (Actual)

November 12, 2021

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

November 18, 2020

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

January 16, 2021

First Posted (Actual)

January 22, 2021

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

April 7, 2022

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

March 29, 2022

Last Verified

March 1, 2022

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • 2020-132

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

YES

IPD Plan Description

Plans to collaborate with other universities in other studies and/or grants.

IPD Sharing Supporting Information Type

  • STUDY_PROTOCOL
  • SAP
  • CSR

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

No

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

No

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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