Comparison of EMLA cream with rattles on reducing immunization pain in four months infants.

Objective: To assess the effect of Eutectic Mixture of Local Anaesthetics cream and rattle on soothing the vaccination pain on four-month-infants.

Methods: The single blind randomised clinical trial was conducted from May 2012 to February 2013 at a clinic under the Gonabad University of Medical Sciences, Iran, and comprised four-month infants who were selected randomly and divided into three groups. In one group, 2g of eutectic mixture of local anaesthetics cream was rubbed on the injection spot before administration; for the other group, the rattle was shaken from 30s to 15s before injection. The last group consisted of controls. The infants were filmed after vaccination. Afterward, a pain questionnaire was filled out by a trained observer. SPSS 11.5 was used for statistical analysis.

Results: Of the 50 subjects in the study 16 (32%) each were in the cream and rattle groups, while the rest (36%) were in the control group. The severity of the pain before intervention in the control, cream and rattle groups was 2.22 +/- 0.88, 2.12 +/- 0.95 and 2.25 +/- 1.06 respectively, which were not statistically significant (p < 0.93). Likewise, the mean severity of pain at the moment of intervention in the three above groups were 8.67 +/- 0.77, 7.12 +/- 0.5 and 7.87 +/- 0.96 respectively, which was significantly different (p < 0.001). The severity of pain 15seconds after the intervention in the groups was 5.06 +/- 1.51, 4.87 +/- 1.31 and 4.19 +/- 1.94 respectively, which were not statistically different (p < 0.27).

Conclusion: The eutectic mixture of local anaesthetics cream and shaking rattle were effective in attenuating pain of vaccination among the infants, but the latter was not as significant as the former.