Both Brighton and COAST PEWS scores performed similarly. A score of ≥3 has good specificity but poor sensitivity for predicting hospital admission and significant illness. Therefore, a high PEWS should be taken seriously but a low score is poor at ruling out the requirement for admission or serious underlying illness. PEWS was better at detecting significant medical illness compared with detecting the need for admission. PEWS performed poorly in detecting significant surgical illness. PEWS may be particularly useful in evaluating respiratory illness in a paediatric ED.
For analgesia and sedation in the paediatric setting, intranasal medication is favourable for several reasons, in particular ease of administration and rapid onset of action. A survey was conducted of all Emergency Departments in England and Wales regarding their use of intranasal medication in children. Approximately 50% use intranasal medication, commonly intranasal diamorphine with sporadic use of other opiates. Intranasal midazolam is used for sedation but is less well tolerated than when administered orally. Intranasal diamorphine, however, is safe and effective in the management of pain in the paediatric emergency setting and its ease of administration makes it ideal for use in the already traumatised child.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.