Abstract
Abdominal pain is a frequent condition among patients in ambulance care and, each patient should receive optimal doses for pain relief. The aim of this study was to evaluate pain scores at admission to hospital and relationship to age, in pre-hospital patients with treated acute abdominal pain. Pain was scored with a Numeric Rating Scale (NRS) by each patient at the rescue scene (NRSs). Ketobemidone was then administered intravenously in incremental doses to achieve NRS-values of four or less, and then NRS was re-evaluated at admission to hospital (NRSh). The results from 64 patients demonstrated statistical significant differences between median NRSs and NRSh scores; 7.0 and 3.5 respectively (p<0.05). Mean ketobedmidone doses were 3.7±1.9 mg. There was a negative correlation between age and pain scores (p<0.01), and NRSs correlated with NRSh which means that patients with high scores for initial pain also scored higher on arrival in the emergency room (p<0.05). This study describes that the general dose of pain-relieving medications with ketobemidone seems to be adequate since the patients'subjective assessments of pain achieve a NRS value less than four at admission to hospital. The study also demonstrate that older the patients, less pain was reported both on the rescue scene and on admission at the hospital.