J Korean Soc Emerg Med.  1997 Sep;8(3):380-384.

The Patients With Headache in Emergency Department

• Chang WJ
• Hwang TS
• Shim HS
• Lee HS
• Kim SJ

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Headache is a common complaint in patients presenting to the emergency department(ED). Many patients suffered sustained headache even after presenting to the ED. This study investigate whether the patients were received analgesics and timely adequate. METHOD: We analyzed 131 adolescent and adult patients with non-traumatic headache without any neurologic deficit in two emergency department during 6 months period retrospectively.
RESULTS
The positive and negative predictive value according to primary impression were 47% and 74% respectively. The mean time to take brain computed tomography(CT) after ED presentation was 120 minutes. The patients with primary impression of intracranial hemorrhage(mainly SAH) were the most fast(mean time 88+/- 70 minutes). 28(21%) patients were received analgesics before taking brain CT(after ED presentation), and 70(53%) patients after CT, 27(54%) patients after cerebrospinal fluid examination. The mean time interval were 43, 126 and 149 minutes on each group being received the analgesics.
CONCLUSION
According to this study many patients suffered sustained headache before being classified to certain type of disorder. It may due to the reasons that there were no definite guidelines treating headache, the pain itself, or the physician treats patients as physician's way.

MeSH Terms

Adolescent
Adult
Analgesics
Brain
Cerebrospinal Fluid
Emergencies*
Emergency Service, Hospital*
Headache*
Humans
Neurologic Manifestations
Retrospective Studies
Analgesics