TV 'acts as painkiller'
Blood tests can be stressful for children
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Thursday, 17, Aug 2006 07:45
Children forced to endure mildly painful medical procedures like blood samples and injections might have their stress levels reduced if they are allowed to watch TV while the procedure takes place, it has been suggested.
A study to be published in the next edition of the Archives of Disease in Childhood journal suggests that a cartoon can be just as distracting, or even more so, than the comfort of a mother's presence.
Researchers from the University of Siena in Italy conducted venipuncture on 69 children who were divided into three groups. While one group had their blood samples taken without any distraction at all, another group were distracted by their mothers while a third group was permitted to watch a cartoon.
After both the mother and child had scored the pain levels encountered in each of the three groups, the result was clear. Those children who had watched TV recorded pain levels three times lower than those who had had no distraction at all, while the group whose mothers were present recorded middling responses.
"Our results support the benefit of introducing a distracting environment during minor painful procedures in children: the higher pain level reported by children during mothers' efforts at distraction shows the difficulty mothers have in interacting positively at a difficult moment in their children's life," the study notes.
"This does not mean that the mothers' presence is negative: although it does not reduce pain, the children will recall that they were not left alone on a stressful occasion," it adds.
Reducing stress levels among children during routine injections could also help the work of staff performing the procedures, although no study is known to have been conducted on the impact of children's behaviour on their professional effectiveness.