Abstract
Introduction
The most recent ABA pain guidelines were developed over 13 years ago and have not been revised despite the changing practice of burn care. Coupled with the nationwide opioid epidemic there is a need to examine the available literature and revise the ABA practice guidelines for pain management.
Methods
A committee of a professional association was created to revise the previously published pain guidelines and consisted of a wide range of burn care providers including burn surgeons, burn nurses, anesthesiologists, a pharmacist, and a psychologist. A MEDLINE search of English-language publications from 1968 to 2018 was conducted using the keywords “burn pain,” “treatment,” and “assessment”. Selected other references were also used based on our evaluation of the greater pain literature. Studies were graded by 2 members of the committee using Oxford Centre for Evidence-based Medicine – Levels of Evidence (level 1 being the highest and level 5 the lowest). When there was a disagreement, a third member of the committee was used to resolve the disagreement. Our next step was to meet as a group and determine what our expert consensus was on a variety of topics related to treating pain in burn-injured patients. Finally, we assessed gaps in the knowledge that was available and determined research questions that would aid us in providing better recommendations for the care of the burn-injured patient.
Results
The literature search produced 189 papers, of which 95 were found to be relevant to the assessment and treatment of burn pain. From the greater pain literature, 115 references were included so a total of 210 papers were analyzed. The greatest number of papers were level 5 evidence (62, 29.5%) while only 30 (14.3%) were level 1. Following the review of the literature and meeting to establish consensus, 18 guidelines were established in the areas of pain assessment, opioid pain medications, non-opioid pain medications, regional anesthesia, and non-pharmacologic treatments.
Conclusions
While there is increasing research on various pain management modalities, the available studies are inadequate to create a true standard of care. Despite this, our committee reached a consensus using available literature from burn or other areas, expert experience and knowledge of pain physiology. Moving forward we call for more burn specific research into all modalities for burn pain control as well as research on multimodal pain control.
Applicability of Research to Practice
Burn pain is particularly difficult to manage and further study is needed to develop a standard of care for burn pain management.
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