LEARNING POINTS/TAKE HOME MESSAGES

Future work should aim to refine chart review data towards identifying any patterns observed within specific groups and explore interventions offered and the relative efficacy of these care pathways between people living with a significant mental disorder/ illness as compared to others. It is also important to explore unconscious bias displayed by the clinicians while documenting the intensity of pain in the presence of mental ill health and the capacity of the person presenting at an emergency setting to offer appropriate interventions and discharge care pathways. We raise this case to stimulate awareness and encourage multidisciplinary discussion that reconceptualising acute MSK injury event as both potentially injurious and distressing, influenced by pre-existing vulnerabilities or resiliencies of the person and the socioenvironmental context within which the person lives and functions. Also, that under-recognised pre-existing psychopathology may represent as a risk-factor for poor recovery from an MSK presentation. While challenging, unrecognised vulnerabilities could promote multiple ED presentations and an incomplete diagnostic and therapeutic landscape. This single-study case followed the repeated ED admissions for recurrent experienced by a young female person in a district hospital ED for repeated acute MSK concerns while living with pre-existing mental health issues.