Currently national immunization programs provide eight different vaccines as regular immunization coverage in South Korea, and all children are recommended to be vaccinated in a total of 22 times. Most vaccinations for childhood diseases are administe...
Currently national immunization programs provide eight different vaccines as regular immunization coverage in South Korea, and all children are recommended to be vaccinated in a total of 22 times. Most vaccinations for childhood diseases are administered by an invasive measure, injection, and painful stimulation in the immunization process causes fear and anxiety among children. Pediatric nurses can reduce the pain and fear by the provision of pain management measures that are appropriate to the age and developmental stage of children, and such effort is important responsibility for nurses.
The present study examines the effects of a distraction intervention with Spin & Sing Alphabet ZooTM during immunization. Children's physiological pain responses were measured using pulse rates, children's self-reporting pain responses were evaluated on the Faces Pain Rating Scale, children's pain responses perceived by parents were evaluated using the Visual Analogue Scale, children's fear behavioral responses observed by researchers were assessed by the Procedure Behavioral Check List. Quasi-experimental research and nonequivalent control group pretest-posttest design was employed.
Data were from 82 pairs of 3 to 6 year-old preschool children and their parents who visited a pediatric clinic located in B city for vaccination against influenza, collected from September to October 2010. In order to prevent the diffusion effect of this experiment, first 41 children were assigned randomly to a control group and next 41 children were assigned to an experimental group who received distraction during immunization. Statistical analyses were conducted with SPSS 18.0 to examine the characteristics of the study participants using descriptive statistics, t-test, and chi-square tests including the homogeneity test between the control and experimental groups. ANCOVA and t-test procedures were utilized for hypotheses testing.
The major findings of this study are as follow.
1. Levels of physiological pain of children in the experimental group were significantly lower than their counterparts in the control group (F=4.537, p=.036).
2. Children's self-reporting pain responses in the experimental group were significantly lower than those in the control group (t=2.162, p=.034).
3. Children's pain responses perceived by parents in the experimental group were not significantly different from those in the control group (t=.138, p=.334).
4. Children's fear behavioral responses observed by researchers in the experimental group was significantly lower than those in the control group (t=2.175, p=.033). Specifically, ‘muscle tension', ’resistance,' and ‘suppression' scores were significant low in the experimental group.
5. Treatment duration in the experimental group were significantly lower than those in the control group(t=2.209, p=.03).
The distraction intervention involving Spin & Sing Alphabet ZooTM during immunization had positive effects on reducing physiological pain, subjective pain, and fear behavioral responses in preschool age children, while pain responses appraised by parents remained unchanged. It may be that parents predicted the level of the child’s pain reflecting their negative perception of injection regardless of the implementation of the intervention. Findings suggest that prior to injection, education and resources should be provided to parents to reduce anxiety or concerns over immunization in order to alleviate pain among preschool children. Additionally, with distraction, reduced fear behavioral responses manifested as children's muscle tension and resistance led to less suppression, and thus treatment duration was significantly decreased.