"Pain is not typically taken into consideration due to him being nonverbal"- emergency department experiences among persons with disabilities: a mixed methods study in Kingston, Ontario.
Minha Haque, Sierra Gaspari, Nicole Bobbette and 2 others
PMID 39119263WHAT IT FOUND
People with disabilities were more likely than the comparison group to say emergency staff gave their needs too little attention, that they felt judged, and that better understanding of their situation, identity, and culture was needed.
Key findings
01Persons with disability were more likely than the comparison group to report that their emergency department needs were given too little attention (p < 0.001).
02Persons with disability were more likely to report feeling judged, and qualitative accounts linked this to staff beliefs about disability and being wrongly labelled as substance users.
03Persons with disability were significantly more likely to say that better understanding of their personal situation, identity, and culture would most improve future emergency care.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for OTs
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What it does not show
This was a convenience sample from one city, so it may not represent all persons with disabilities. The disability group was 184 surveys from 175 unique persons with disability or personal caregivers, and some disability types, such as hearing loss or deafness, were small. Participants had to be medically stable and English-proficient, so people who could not take part may have been missed. The stories were shorter than interviews, and the rating options were fixed beforehand, which may have limited how participants could express their experience. Some accounts came from personal caregivers rather than the person with disability, so not every report is the patient's own experience.
Declared interests
Funding came from Queen's University Catalyst Fund, the Clinical Teachers' Association of Queen's University, Queen's University Fund for Scholarly Research and Creative Work and Professional Development, and the Canada Excellence Research Chairs Program. The authors declared that the funders did not play a role in design, implementation, analysis, interpretation, or writing.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that emergency departments are providing adequate care because some participants described positive medical care. The authors state that this positive care theme was not substantiated by the quantitative findings.