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Comparative heel stick study showed that newborn infants who had undergone repeated painful procedures showed increased short‐term pain responses
Author(s) -
Gokulu G.,
Bilgen H.,
Ozdemir H.,
Sarioz A.,
Memisoglu A.,
Gucuyener K.,
Ozek E.
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
acta paediatrica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.772
H-Index - 115
eISSN - 1651-2227
pISSN - 0803-5253
DOI - 10.1111/apa.13557
Subject(s) - medicine , crying , heel , gestational age , heart rate , anesthesia , skin conductance , oxygen saturation , visual analogue scale , pediatrics , blood pressure , pregnancy , oxygen , chemistry , genetics , organic chemistry , psychiatry , biology , biomedical engineering , anatomy
Aim We evaluated the short‐term effect of repeated pain exposure on the pain responses of newborn infants using different pain assessment methods, as this area had been under‐researched. Methods We compared 20 term, large for gestational age infants and 40 term, appropriate for gestational age controls. All had undergone a heel stick for a newborn screening test just before discharge, but the larger babies had also undergone at least other five painful stimuli prior to that. A pulse oximeter and a skin conductance algesimeter ( SCA ) were connected to the babies during the heel prick, and video recordings were made. Crying time, the Neonatal Infant Pain Scale ( NIPS ), heart rate, peripheral oxygen saturation (SpO 2 ) and SCA measurements were compared within and between the groups. Results After the heel prick, the crying time (p = 0.021) and NIPS (p = 0.013) scores were significantly higher in the study group and the SpO 2 levels were significantly lower (p = 0.009), but the heart rate (p = 0.981) was not significantly different between the groups. SCA measurements did not differ significantly between the groups. Conclusion Babies who received more painful stimuli during the first few days of life showed greater pain responses during a subsequent heel prick.