Associated factors with skin cooling technique and pain sensation after immunization among infants

Abstract

Background There are factors influencing response to painful stimuli, such as infants’ physiological, physical, personal, and emotional states. Exploration of these factors helps to improve pain management plan for infants undergoing immunizations. Aim To identify associated factors with skin-cooling technique and pain sensation after immunization among infants. Patients and methods A two-group pre–post quasi-experiment study was performed in EL-Sheikh Zaied’s medical center affiliated to Ministry of Health, Ismailia City, on a purposeful sample of 180 infants from 2 to 6 months of age who were administered routine immunization. A structured interview questionnaire was used, comprising personal data, vital signs, and neonatal infant pain scale. All research ethics guidelines were applied. Results All infants who had no pain and mild pain had normal heart, respiratory rate, and temperature in the experimental group, whereas in the control group, all of the infants with a severe pain had tachycardia, tachypnea, and low-grade fever. All underweight infants had severe pain in the experimental group, whereas all of the underweight and overweight infants and more than three-quarters of the normal weight infants had severe pain in the control group. More than two-thirds of the infants aged 6 months had no pain, whereas infants aged 2 and 4 months had mild pain in the experimental group, compared with less than three-quarters of infants aged 2 months had moderate pain, whereas all infants aged 4 and 6 months had severe pain in control group. Moreover, females were the commonest sex among no pain and mild pain category in the experimental group, whereas most males had severe pain among the control group. Conclusion Oldest infants, normal weight, vital signs, and female sex were the most associated factors with reduced pain after immunization. Recommendations Further studies on various age groups of the pediatric population with different types of vaccines must be done to detect new factors.