Sex- and age-related patterns in the use of analgesics in older patients in the emergency department.

BACKGROUND: Treatment of acute pain in older patients is a common challenge faced in emergency departments (EDs). Despite many studies that have investigated chronic analgesic use in the elderly, data on patterns of acute use, especially in EDs, of analgesics according to patient characteristics is scarce. OBJECTIVE: To investigate sex- and age-related patterns of analgesic use in the Spanish EDs and determine differences in age-related patterns according to patient sex. DESIGN: A secondary analysis of the Emergency Department and Elderly Needs (EDEN) multipurpose cohort. SETTING: Fifty-two Spanish EDs (17% of Spanish EDs covering 25% of Spanish population). PARTICIPANTS: All patients' ≥65 years attending ED during 1 week (April 1-7, 2019). Patient characteristics recorded included age, sex, chronic treatment with non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) and opiates, comorbidity, dependence, dementia, depression, ability to walk and previous falls. Analgesics used in the ED were categorized in three groups: non-NSAID non-opioids (mainly paracetamol and metamizole, PM), NSAIDs, and opiates. OUTCOME MEASURES: Frequency of analgesic use was quantified, and the relationship between sex and age and analgesic use (in general and for each analgesic group) was assessed by unadjusted and adjusted logistic regression and restricted cubic spline models. Interaction between sex and age was explored. MAIN RESULTS: We included 24 573 patients, and 6678 (27.2%) received analgesics in the ED: 5551 (22.6%) PM, 1661 (6.8%) NSAIDs and 937 (3.8%) opiates (1312 received combinations). Analgesics were more frequently used in women (adjusted OR = 1.076, 95%CI = 1.014-1.142), as well as with NSAID (1.205, 1.083-1.341). Analgesic use increased with age, increasing PM and decreasing NSAIDs use. Opiate use remained quite constant across age and sex. Interaction of sex with age was present for the use of analgesics in general ( P  = 0.006), for PM ( P  < 0.001) and for opiates ( P  = 0.033), with higher use of all these analgesics in women. CONCLUSION: Use of analgesics in older individuals in EDs is mildly augmented in women and increases with age, with PM use increasing and NSAIDs decreasing with age. Conversely, opiate use is quite constant according to sex and age. Age-related patterns differ according to sex, with age-related curves of women showing higher probabilities than those of men to receive any analgesic, PM or opiates.

Impact of First Wave of COVID-19 Pandemic on Mortality at Emergency Department in Older Patients with COVID and Non-COVID Diagnoses.

INTRODUCTION: Mortality in emergency departments (EDs) is not well known. This study aimed to assess the impact of the first-wave pandemic on deaths accounted in the ED of older patients with COVID and non-COVID diseases. METHODS: We used data from the Emergency Department and Elderly Needs (EDEN) cohort (pre-COVID period) and from the EDEN-COVID cohort (COVID period) that included all patients ≥65 years seen in 52 Spanish EDs from April 1 to 7, 2019, and March 30 to April 5, 2020, respectively. We recorded patient characteristics and final destination at ED. We compared older patients in the pre-COVID period, with older patients with non-COVID and with COVID-19. ED-mortality (before discharge or hospitalization) is the prior outcome and is expressed as an adjusted odds ratio (aOR) with 95% interval confidence. RESULTS: We included 23,338 older patients from the pre-COVID period (aged 78.3 [8.1] years), 6,715 patients with non-COVID conditions (aged 78.9 [8.2] years) and 3,055 with COVID (aged 78.3 [8.3] years) from the COVID period. Compared to the older patients, pre-COVID period, patients with non-COVID and with COVID-19 were more often male, referred by a doctor and by ambulance, with more comorbidity and disability, dementia, nursing home, and more risk according to qSOFA, respectively (p < 0.001). Compared to the pre-COVID period, patients with non-COVID and with COVID-19 were more often to be hospitalized from ED (24.8% vs. 44.3% vs. 79.1%) and were more often to die in ED (0.6% vs. 1.2% vs. 2.2%), respectively (p < 0.001). Compared to the pre-COVID period, aOR for age, sex, comorbidity and disability, ED mortality in elderly patients cared in ED during the COVID period was 2.31 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.76-3.06), and 3.75 (95% CI: 2.77-5.07) for patients with COVID. By adding the variable qSOFA to the model, such OR were 1.59 (95% CI: 1.11-2.30) and 2.16 (95% CI: 1.47-3.17), respectively. CONCLUSIONS: During the early first pandemic wave of COVID-19, more complex and life-threatening older with COVID and non-COVID diseases were seen compared to the pre-COVID period. In addition, the need for hospitalization and the ED mortality doubled in non-COVID and tripled in COVID diagnosis. This increase in ED mortality is not only explained by the complexity or severity of the elderly patients but also because of the system's overload.