| Summary: | Pain is a very common symptom for patients admitted to Emergency departments (EDs) and its undertreatment represents a widespread problem. A pre-post study on 249 patients (128 pre and 121 in the post phase) assessed the effectiveness of the implementation of a pain assessment scale to obtain a reduction of its intensity in patients discharged from an ED of Turin. Pain was self assessed by the patient (pre) and after the implementation of the scale its intensity was recorded on triage clinical record (post). After the implementation of the NRS, patients with severe pain had a statistically significant reduction of mean pain values (-1,4 points, p < 0,001). Analgesics were administered to 7 patients (5,5%) before and to 16 patients (13,2%) after the adoption of the NRS (p < 0,03) but 91 (72%) patients before and 73 (60%) after were discharged with the same level of pain experienced at admission.
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