Attributes of analgesics for emergency pain relief: results of the Consensus on Management of Pain Caused by Trauma Delphi initiative

ACcurate COnsensus Reporting Document (ACCORD) explanation and elaboration: Guidance and examples to support reporting consensus methods

BACKGROUND

When research evidence is limited, inconsistent, or absent, healthcare decisions and policies need to be based on consensus among interested stakeholders. In these processes, the knowledge, experience, and expertise of health professionals, researchers, policymakers, and the public are systematically collected and synthesised to reach agreed clinical recommendations and/or priorities. However, despite the influence of consensus exercises, the methods used to achieve agreement are often poorly reported. The ACCORD (ACcurate COnsensus Reporting Document) guideline was developed to help report any consensus methods used in biomedical research, regardless of the health field, techniques used, or application. This explanatory document facilitates the use of the ACCORD checklist.

METHODS AND FINDINGS

This paper was built collaboratively based on classic and contemporary literature on consensus methods and publications reporting their use. For each ACCORD checklist item, this explanation and elaboration document unpacks the pieces of information that should be reported and provides a rationale on why it is essential to describe them in detail. Furthermore, this document offers a glossary of terms used in consensus exercises to clarify the meaning of common terms used across consensus methods, to promote uniformity, and to support understanding for consumers who read consensus statements, position statements, or clinical practice guidelines (CPGs). The items are followed by examples of reporting items from the ACCORD guideline, in text, tables, and figures.

CONCLUSIONS

The ACCORD materials-including the reporting guideline and this explanation and elaboration document-can be used by anyone reporting a consensus exercise used in the context of health research. As a reporting guideline, ACCORD helps researchers to be transparent about the materials, resources (both human and financial), and procedures used in their investigations so readers can judge the trustworthiness and applicability of their results/recommendations.

Anaesthetic considerations in polytrauma patients

Trauma remains a major public health concern due to the high cost, associated morbidity, and mortality both in developed and developing countries. Management of polytrauma patients has advanced and improved over the last few decades with a better understanding of the pathophysiology of shock, resuscitation, and hemodynamic changes. Anaesthesia and application of anaesthetic principles have consequently evolved and can be applied in polytrauma patients throughout their journey of treatment beginning from pre-hospital care, emergency department resuscitation, surgical procedures, and rehabilitation. Providing immediate pain relief is an important component in the management of these patients. Performing peripheral nerve blocks in the pre-hospital setting when feasible or on arrival in the emergency room provides rapid pain relief, better patient co-operation, decreases the risk of chronic pain syndromes. This narrative evaluates the role of anaesthesia and anaesthesiologists in the management of polytrauma patients. The authors performed a thorough review of the literature using various databased of Medline, PubMed, Embase, and Google Scholar. The relevant papers were also searched manually from the cross-referencing of retrieved papers. Full papers published in English till September 25, 2020 were included for this review. The keywords included 'trauma', 'difficult airway', 'anaesthesia', 'fluid and blood', 'monitoring', 'critical care', 'resuscitation' and 'surgery' in various combinations. The holistic management of trauma victims requires a multidisciplinary time-based approach for an optimal outcome. The management starts from assessment and simultaneous management for the optimization of the trauma victim from the first point of contact itself. The anaesthetic technique of choice in the perioperative management of trauma patients depends on different factors such as neurological status, cardiovascular stability, type and duration of surgery, coagulation status. Regional techniques are to be used whenever possible due to the beneficial effects observed with these techniques. Various important aspects are being discussed in subsequent sections.