The Effect of Using Toy and Cartoon Character Masks on Pain and Anxiety During Peripheral Intravenous Catheterization in Children

Invasive painful interventions such as diagnostic and therapeutic procedures, blood sampling, injection and vaccine administration are among the greatest fears of children and lead to undesirable experiences both in children and in parents and healthcare personnel due to children's reactions to pain. Especially anxiety, fear and behavioral problems caused by interventional procedures exacerbate children's pain and may prevent the procedure (İnal &Canbulat 2015;Tuna 2014; Wolyniez et al. 2013). It is important for healthcare personnel to spend additional time to manage the child's pain, anxiety and fear of medical procedures (Longobardi et al. 2019, Chen et al. 2020). The American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Pain Society recommend alleviating or minimizing stress and pain, including practices such as venipuncture (Özel &Çetin 2020).

Pain treatment requires a multidisciplinary team approach. One of the indispensable members of this team is the nurse. One of the care philosophies of pediatric nursing is atraumatic care. In this context, reducing the pain of the child and the physical and emotional effects that pain may cause is one of the most important tasks of the nurse (Çöçelli et al. 2008; Semerci et al. 2020).

Pharmacologic and nonpharmacologic techniques are applied to reduce the emotional and physical effects of painful intervention (Özel &Çetin 2020). Nonpharmacologic pain relief methods are preferred because they are both cost-effective and non-invasive and have no risk of side effects (Mohebbi & Azimzadeh 2014). In recent years, research on the use of nonpharmacologic methods by nurses to relieve pain in painful procedures has increased (İnal &Canbulat 2015). Studies have shown that nonpharmacologic methods can be effective alone, especially in pain related to invasive interventions, and when used in combination with pharmacologic methods, they increase the effectiveness of drugs (Uğurlu 2017).

Researchers have reported that the use of distraction technique during painful procedures resulted in less pain reported by children (Dumoulin et al. 2019). In the preschool age group, various distraction activities such as playing with distraction cards, squeezing soft balls, blowing balloons, blowing soap bubbles, playing with dough or Buzzy, guided imagery, and listening to music are utilized ( Chen et al. 2020; Krauss et al. 2016).

In a study in which distraction cards were used during blood sampling, it was found that the use of these cards was effective in relieving pain in children (İnal &Kelleci 2012). In another study conducted to determine the effect of watching cartoons on pain scores and crying duration in children aged 3-6 years during intravenous access, it was found that watching cartoons was a non-pharmacologic pain relief method that decreases pain perception by distracting the child (Akgül et al. 2018).