The Effectiveness of Non-Pharmacological Methods in the Management of Wound Dressing Pain: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Wound dressing changes can be painful experiences for patients. This study aims to systematically analyze the research conducted on the non-pharmacological methods used for the management of dressing pain. The study includes research published in the CINAHL, EBSCO, Medline, Pubmed, Cochrane, Ovid, Science Direct, Scopus, Web of Science, and Wiley Online Library databases between 2010-2022 and used non-pharmacological wound pain, dressing change pain, complementary therapies in wound pain, and wound dressing pain management as keywords to arrive at a total of 863 studies. Of these, the article evaluates the 25 studies that met the inclusion criteria. At 80.77%, burn wounds were the most studied wound type in the included research. Of the studies, 60% were performed on adult patients, and 69.23% were randomized controlled clinical trials. The most commonly used methods were distraction (20%), virtual reality (20%), and music therapy (20%). Using non-pharmacological methods can help reduce pain and pain-related anxiety during dressing changes. Clinics should develop protocols for the implementation of non-pharmacological methods and take into consideration patients’ experiences and preferences regarding non-pharmacological methods.