Abstract:
Background: Every day a large number of children are subject to measures for prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of disease that most of these measures are associated with venous blood sampling. Painful measures such as blood sampling in children in addition to the physical and emotional annoying effect could cause wider negative consequences on childhood age and physical, behavioral and social disorders in children. This study aimed to determine the effect of distraction by inflating a balloon on the amount of pain during taking blood samples from children between the ages of 4 to 7.
Methods: The study was an intervention clinical trial that was conducted on 80 children admitted to the pediatric department of Imam Khomeini Hospital in Jiroft- Kerman province and had the inclusion criteria after obtaining their parent's consent. Children were randomly grouped into the test (n = 40) and control (n = 40) groups that in the test group children's pain was measured during the venous blood sampling during inflating a balloon and their pain was measured in the control group without any intervention during blood sampling. Wong-Baker FACES questionnaire was used for pain assessment.
Results: The results showed that the majority of participants were 4-7-year-old girls (60 percent). Average pain scores for children in the two groups showed no significant difference before the intervention but the average pain scores after the intervention in the test and control group were 1.38±2.56 and 4.2±1.58; there was a significant difference between pain in both test and control groups after the intervention (p-value < 0.05).
Conclusion: Using the method of distraction by inflating the balloon during venous blood sampling reduces pain in children.
