Residents: how is headache care in general, including emergency

Abstract

Introduction

Headaches are pains in any region of the head with variable intensity, as well as its location. They can be localized or diffuse, acute or chronic, associated or not with other symptoms and have numerous causes.
More than 90% of people report a history of headache during their lifetime. In addition, an overload is observed in emergency units and outpatient clinics due to inadequate initial care for a headache.

Objective

1) Conduct an epidemiological survey of headache care in emergency care units, analyzing the conduct of resident physicians. 2) Estimate the resolvability of headache cases in the emergency room and provide actions through continuing education if a deficiency in the care provided by professionals is demonstrated.

Methods

This is a descriptive observational study (cross-sectional cohort) in which we applied an online questionnaire to resident physicians who will be providing treatment in general to the patients in the city of Catanduva and neighboring cities. This is a semi-structured interview aided with self-administrated questionnaire (annexed in online in private cloud to guarantee confidentiality) which was sent via email and WhatsApp. Before joining the study, the participants filled out the informed consent form. After applying the forms, Excel spreadsheet was generated in order to process the statistical analysis. The inclusion criteria was: be a resident physician in any area of activity. The exclusion criteria: resident withdrawal at any time during the study. Number of the project in the ethics committee: 44857315.5.0000.5430

Results

A total of 115 residents physicians answered the questionnaire. The average age is 27,6 years and the majority are specializing in Clinical Surgery, Internal

Medicine and Clinical Specialties. Twenty residents reported they didn't see any headache patient and the other 95 cared weekly for an average of 4,87 patients with...

(To see the complet abstract, please, check out the PDF.)