A Study to Assess the Effectiveness of Ice Application on Pain Response Prior to Intravenous Procedures among Children at Tertiary Care Hospital

Children fear the most for pain from intravenous procedures during their hospitalization. The procedural pain is worse than the illness itself. Ice is a convenient topical refrigerant modality which can be used to reduce pain. The study was aimed to assess the pain response of children during intravenous procedures in experimental group and control group and the effectiveness of ice application on pain response during intravenous procedures among children and find association between pain score and selected demographic variables of children admitted in pediatric ward at Krishna Hospital and Medical Research Centre, Karad, Maharashtra, India. The study was two groups post-test only control group design. 60 children aged 6 -12 years were selected, 30 children in experimental and 30 in control group were the sample selected by Non probability purposive sampling technique. The result shows the mean pain score of experimental group was 0.66 and control group was 8.93. The unpaired t test value was 24.817 (p<0.01), showing significant difference was present between mean pain score level among children in control and experimental group as p value <0.05. No significant association between pain scores and selected demographic variables of children in control group was present, whereas pain scores with age of children (χ2 =8.816), gender of children (χ2 = 5), and weight of children (χ2 = 4.909) in experimental group had significant association. The study concluded that the ice application is a practical modality of choice, promote comfort and cost effective, means of reducing pain in children during intravenous procedures.