A Study to Assess Fear Perceived by Children Undergoing Painful Invasive Intravenous Procedures

Pain can be physiological but also includes spiritual, emotional and psychosocial dimension. The child may associate a great deal of anxiety and fear with pain. In the health care setting medical procedures that are applied using a needle, such as venipuncture and immunization are the most common and important sources of pain for children, causing anxiety, distress and fear. Atraumatic care focuses on reducing the negative impact of such procedures.

A descriptive study to assess the fear perceived by children prior to Painful Invasive intravenous procedures.

To determine fear perceived by children prior to Painful Invasive intravenous procedures and to determine the association between selected variables and fear.

A descriptive study was done to determine fear perceived by children prior to Painful Invasive intravenous procedures among 48 children. The subjects were selected by purposive sampling technique. The level of fear was assessed using Children's fear scale.

Maximum children 97.9% had some level of fear whereas only 2.08% verbalized that they have no fear or procedure. Correlation coefficient between Fear of invasive procedures and selected demographic variables like age, Gender, Birth order, previous experience of painful procedure and presence of caregiver were calculated Fisher Exact test showed significant association between fear and birth order.