This research study, called: “Prehospital Analgesia INtervention Trial” (PAIN), will look at whether giving ketamine or fentanyl to people who have traumatic injuries and need treatment for pain will help them survive better than normal care.
Normally when a person has a severe traumatic injury, fentanyl is given through an IV for pain management. Fentanyl is an opioid used to treat pain. New information suggests that giving ketamine, which is not an opioid, may avoid side effects of opioids such as very low blood pressure, low oxygen level, or the need to insert a breathing tube to help the patient breathe.
For the study, severely injured patients will receive either fentanyl or ketamine through an IV for pain treatment by EMS providers. Researchers will look at both groups of people and see if one group did better than the other. We’ll also collect information from health records for both groups as part of the study.
People who are included in studies needing emergency treatments like this one are very sick and cannot give permission beforehand. However, we must tell the person as soon as we can that they are in the study and give them a chance to decide if they want to keep participating.
Emergency studies must follow special rules. One rule is that before we do the study, we must talk to community members like you to make sure people know about the study and to see what the community thinks about it. This survey is one way for us to do that. The following questions will help us determine your views concerning the PAIN study. There will be an opportunity at the end of this questionnaire for you to add any additional comments you may have. Thank you for your input.