A Study to assess the effectiveness of ICE Application on Injection Site in Reducing Pain among Toddlers in Selected PHC, Bangalore

Pediatric nursing is now focusing to provide atraumatic care to the children. Minimizing pain during childhood vaccination can help to prevent distress, development of needle fears and subsequent health care avoidance behaviors, such as non-adherence with vaccination schedules. A quasi experimental study was conducted to assess the effectiveness of ice application on injection site in reducing pain among toddlers. The study was conducted at a rural PHC, Bangalore among 60 toddlers and the samples were selected using non-probability convenience sampling technique out of which 30 were assigned to experimental and 30 to control group. A structured questionnaire was used to collect the demographic data from the caretakers of toddlers. In experimental group, ice-cube wrapped with cotton cloth is applied for toddlers receiving vaccines like DPT/MMR/HIB for duration of 30 seconds prior to intramuscular injection and in control group, the PHC routine interventions were carried out. The level of injection pain was assessed with the help of FLACC scale after intervention in both experimental and control group. The data collected were tabulated and analyzed using frequency distribution, percentage, mean, standard deviation, chi-square test and Mann-Whitney U test. The findings of the study showed that in the experimental group, 21(70%) subjects had pain score between 1–4(mild pain) and 9(30%) had score 0(no pain). In control group, 4(13.3%) subjects had pain score between 1–4(mild pain) and 26(86.7%) had score between 5–7(moderate pain), which signifies that application of ice was effective in reducing the injection pain among the toddlers.