The efficacy of an animation distraction for pain relief in young children undergoing cannulation in a rural teaching hospital: a randomised controlled trial

BACKGROUND: Children undergoing invasive medical procedures experience pain, anxiety and stress. Experiences with painful needle procedures in childhood may lead to long-term negative attitudes toward clinicians, hospitals and the utilization of health care services1. Distraction has been shown to be an effective method of reducing pain as they can divert attention away from the painful stimuli2. Given the importance of pain relief in the child, it is important to establish the most reliable, safe and low-cost intervention in this rural teaching hospital.

OBJECTIVES: To assess the effectiveness of an animation distraction in alleviating pain measured using the Wong Baker FACES pain-rating scale in children undergoing venous cannulation in the paediatric ward of a rural teaching hospital.

METHODOLOGY: This parallel group, single blinded, randomised controlled trial undertaken in children between 3 to 8 years of age, undergoing venous cannulation. A total of 64 children were randomised into two groups by permuted block randomisation with allocation concealment. A nature animation was shown to children in the intervention group. Pain was assessed by Wong Baker FACES pain-rating scale at pre-cannulation, during and one and three minutes post-cannulation. The mean pain scores in the two groups were compared using the student t-test.

RESULTS: The demographic variables in the two groups tested for homogeneity by Chi square test. The result revealed that there is significantly (p<0.005) less pain in children with animation distraction at initiation, at one minute, at three minute cannulation. At zero minute (during pricking) the difference of mean score of both groups is 1.313 and p=0.015(p<0.05).At one minute (after pricking) the difference in mean score was 1.938 and p=0.002.At third minute of pricking the difference in mean score was 3.125 and p=0.000(p<0.05).The result showed the statistical significant difference of mean pain score at 0, 1,3 minute.

CONCLUSION: If the pain score of children on the FACES scale is reduced in the intervention group it will show that animation distraction provides effective pain relief. This is a simple, cost-effective and easily implementable measure to reduce pain.