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Background & Objective: Illness, hospitalization and pain are often first crisis children faced with in their early life. Performing painful procedures such as IV injections for medical purposes are inevitable and stressful events in pediatric wards. Distraction is an inexpensive, practical, and nonpharmacological nursing intervention for pain relief. This study aimed to determine the effects of distraction on some physiological indices (heart rate and O₂ saturation (and intensity of pain in the hospitalized children aged 3-6 years undergoing IV injection.

Methods & Materials: In this clinical trial, 72 children aged 3-6 years who were undergoing IV insertion were recruited for the study. The participants were randomly allocated into two groups of intervention and control. Distraction technique was applied using bubble-maker in the intervention group. After 10 minutes, pain intensity was measured using OUCHER scale. Moreover, heart rate and blood oxygen saturation were measured for three minutes in both groups using Pulse Oxymeter pre- and post-intervention.

Results: The findings showed statistically significant differences in the average heart rate (P<0.01) and the amount of saturated oxygen (P<0.009) and the pain intensity (P<0.001) between two groups after the intervention. The pain decreased significantly in the intervention group in comparison with the control group.

Conclusion: According to the research findings, distraction with bubble-maker resulted in decreasing the physiological responses and intensity of pain in children aged 3- 6 years. This method can be useful in reliving the pain in preschool children undergoing IV insertion.

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Background & Aim: Pain is an unpleasant experience related to potential or actual tissue damage. Distraction is an effective technique to control pain. This study aimed to examine the effect of pressing a small soft ball during intravenous catheter insertion on pain related behavioral responses of children.

Methods & Materials: A randomized clinical trial study was conducted in surgical ward of the Qods hospital in Qazvin, Iran in 2010. Sixty children aged 4-6 were selected through a simple randomized sampling method. The children were allocated into two equal intervention and control groups. Data were collected using the FLACC scale. In the intervention group, children were asked to press a soft ball during IV catheter insertion. The researcher marked the FLACC during the procedure. In the control group, no distraction was made during the IV catheter placement. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, independent-sample t-test, Chi square at P<0.05.

Results: There was no significant difference between the two groups in terms of demographic variables including gender, birth order, race, age and type of disease. In the intervention group, none of the children experienced severe pain during IV catheter insertion and 63.3% of the children had moderate pain. In the control group, 50.0% of children had moderate pain and 23.3% of them experienced severe pain during IV catheter insertion. There was a significant difference in perceived pain between the children of two groups (P<0.001).

Conclusion: Distraction is an effective, non-expensive, and easy-to-access technique to control and reduce pain in children during IV catheter placement. This study showed that distraction through pressing a soft ball was effective in reducing the behavioral responses of pain in children who underwent IV catheter placement.

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Background & Aim: Stress and anxiety are one of the major problems in patients undergoing semi-invasive and invasive procedures such as endoscopy. Different methods to reduce anxiety do not have the same effects. The aim of this study is to compare the effect of thought distraction by music therapy and the presence of caregiver on anxiety level of patients undergoing endoscopy.
Methods & Materials: In this randomized clinical trial, 105 patients referred to endoscopy ward of Shahid Mohammadi hospital and Persian Gulf Bandar Abbas hospital in 2018 were selected by the convenience sampling method and assigned into three groups of music therapy, presence of caregiver and control using the random allocation (35 in each group). The demographic information form and the Spielberger anxiety questionnaire (STAL) were completed before and after the intervention. In the music therapy group, patients received natural sounds through headphones. In the caregiver’s presence group, endoscopy was performed with the presence of caregiver, and the control group only received routine pre-endoscopic care. Data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics through the SPSS software version 24 at a significance level of 0.05.
Results: The result of analysis of variance showed that there was no significant difference in the anxiety mean score between the three groups before the intervention (P=0.77), but a significant difference was observed after the intervention (P<0.005). The decrease in scores in the music therapy group was significant (P=0.044), but in the caregiver’s presence group (P=0.571) and the control group (P=0.663), no significant change was observed before and after endoscopy.
Conclusion: The results of this study showed that distraction with music therapy is an effective way to help patients undergoing endoscopy, and the use of this method can help the procedure to be performed better and enhance patient satisfaction.
Clinical trial registry: IRCT20190715044215N1