Affecting change through continuing education: improving vaccine administration technique

The practice of aspiration before administering intramuscular immunization has been identified as causing increased pain. The latest evidence shows that this is no longer best practice. Some nurses believe that aspiration is necessary for patient safety. An education session was provided to 150 participants, most of whom were community health nurses attending an immunization conference. Nurses were invited to complete a pre-education questionnaire on current knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs related to the administration of intramuscular immunizations as well as a posteducation questionnaire to identify changes in knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs. On the pre-education questionnaire, 32.4% of respondents indicated that injecting slowly causes the most pain during intramuscular immunization. On the posteducation questionnaire, 94.2% indicated that injecting the vaccine slowly caused more pain than injecting the vaccine swiftly. After the education session, most of the participants showed an understanding of current best practice recommendations for aspiration during the administration of intramuscular immunizations.