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

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

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.

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).

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.