Effectiveness of cartoon distraction on pain perception and distress in children during intravenous injection

Background: Intravenous injection is a medical procedure, often accompanied by pain and distress in children. Thus the reduction of such pain and distress becomes the responsibility of health care professionals to an extent as possible while maintaining patient safety by using various pharmacological and non pharmacological interventions. Method: A quasi experimental study was undertaken on children of 4 to 12 years age who were undergoing intravenous injections to determine the effectiveness of “Cartoon Distraction” as a strategy to reduce the pain perception and distress. The study comprised of 30 children selected through purposive sampling method. In present study the assessment of pain and distress done in morning without cartoon distraction and in evening with cartoon distraction at initiation, at five minutes and at termination of administration of intravenous injection on FACES pain scale and on distress assessment scale respectively on day 1. While on day 2, to understand the diurnal effect of pain and distress, there was assessment of pain and distress in morning with cartoon distraction and in evening without cartoon distraction at initiation, at five minutes and at termination of administration of intravenous injection Result: The results revealed that there is significantly (p <0.005) less pain and distress in children with cartoon distraction at initiation, at five minutes and at termination of administration of intravenous injection. The findings also revealed that there is no influence of gender on perception of pain but there was an inverse relation of behavior pain response with age of the child. Children who had history of previous hospitalization had an increased perception of pain and distress during the current hospitalization. Pain and distress is also directly proportional to time duration of administration of intravenous injection and number of intravenous injection per day and the presence of caregiver had no role on the same. Conclusion: It was concluded that cartoon distraction is an effective distraction strategy to reduce pain and distress among children during intravenous injection.