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P. Venkatesan1, S. Mandrekar1
1Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Physiotherapy, Bangalore, India
Background: Chest pain has repeatedly been ranked amongst the top five disease related groups, with an estimated lifetime prevalence of around 20-40% in the general population. It is a common presentation in the emergency department (ED), accounting for 5-12% of all ED admissions. Physiotherapists have been shown to be effective in managing low urgency musculoskeletal conditions in the ED. There is a lack of clarity regarding the prevalence of musculoskeletal causes of chest pain in the emergency department. A systematic review has therefore been undertaken, to study the prevalence of musculoskeletal chest pain in the emergency department.
Purpose: Our purpose was to systematically review and meta-analytically analyse relevant studies to determine the prevalence of musculoskeletal chest pain in the emergency department.
Methods: PubMed, Cochrane Library, SCOPUS, Science Direct and OVID were systematically searched from inception to 19th January 2020, to identify observational studies where the prevalence of musculoskeletal causes of chest pain were reported in isolation or in combination with other causes or could be calculated from the available data.
Results: A meta-analysis of the 9 included studies showed the global pooled prevalence of musculoskeletal chest pain in the emergency department to be 16% (10%-22%) [I2=99.24%]. The pooled prevalence for the European continent was found to be 17% (9%-25%) [I2=99.51%] and that for the emergency departments in the urban areas was 13% (7%-9%) [I2=99.00%].
Conclusion(s): This review provides a reliable estimate of the prevalence of musculoskeletal chest pain in the emergency department. More studies providing age and gender specific data for prevalence of musculoskeletal chest pain in the emergency department should be carried out. Dearth of such data from rural areas also needs to be addressed in future research work.
Implications: The study provides prevalence of musculoskeletal pain in emergency department, which provides scope for physiotherapy role in managing musculoskeletal pain.
Funding, acknowledgements: Its an unfunded study
Keywords: chest pain, musculoskeletal pain, prevalence
Topic: Musculoskeletal
Did this work require ethics approval? No
Institution: Manipal Academy of Higher Education
Committee: Manipal Hospital Ethical Committee
Reason: Its a systematic review
All authors, affiliations and abstracts have been published as submitted.
