[Is local anesthesia necessary for venipuncture?].

We evaluated the necessity of local anesthesia for the venipuncture pain in 27 healthy adult volunteers by using a visual analogue scale (VAS) from 0 to 10. The pain scales were measured three times: at the time of percutaneous intravenous cannulation (20 G polyurethane catheter) without local anesthesia as well as the skin infiltration with local anesthetics (0.5% lidocaine 0.5 ml; 25 G needle), and after intravenous cannulation. The measurements were done twice, once by an expert staff and once by a novice staff with an interval of three days. VAS values were significantly higher (2.4 +/- 1.1) for the percutaneous intravenous cannulation without local anesthesia than both for the skin infiltration with local anesthetics (1.4 +/- 0.6) and for the evaluation after intravenous cannulation (0.7 +/- 0.8), independent of who inserted the catheter. VAS values were significantly lower (2.1 +/- 1.0) when the percutaneous intravenous cannulation without local anesthesia was performed by expert staff than when it was performed by novice staff (2.7 +/- 1.1; P < 0.05). We conclude that local anesthesia is necessary when novice staff performs the percutaneous intravenous catheterization.