Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 8, 2025
Electrophysiological Measurements and Analysis of Nociception in Human Infants
Published on: December 20, 2011
Comparative effectiveness of multi-sensory interventions for reducing pain among premature infants: A systematic
Mei-di Shen1, Xiang-Dong Ding2, Li Fu1
1School of Nursing, Peking University, Beijing, China.
Insights
Tactile-kinesthetic interventions are most effective for reducing procedural pain in premature infants. This systematic review compared multi-sensory interventions to guide optimal pain management strategies.
Area of Science:
- Neonatal care
- Pain management
- Evidence-based practice
Background:
- Multi-sensory interventions effectively reduce pain in premature infants.
- A comparative analysis is needed to determine the optimal intervention for clinical use.
Purpose of the Study:
- To systematically review and network meta-analyze the effectiveness of various multi-sensory interventions for pain relief in premature infants.
- To identify the most suitable intervention for clinical decision-making.
Main Methods:
- A comprehensive literature search was conducted on August 19, 2024.
- Cochrane Risk of Bias (version 2) assessed study quality.
- Network meta-analysis compared intervention effectiveness.
Main Results:
- 18 trials with 1408 infants were included.
- Tactile-kinesthetic, tactile-auditory, and tactile-visual-gustatory-olfactory interventions surpassed routine care (P < 0.05).
- Tactile-kinesthetic intervention was most effective overall; specific interventions excelled for invasive vs. non-invasive procedures.
Conclusions:
- Prioritize careful assessment to select appropriate multi-sensory interventions based on the pain procedure.
- Further research is needed to refine and optimize these strategies for widespread application.
Background:
A series of multi-sensory interventions are proved to be effective in reducing pain among premature infants. Nevertheless, there lacks a comparison of these interventions to find the most suitable and optimal one for clinical decision-making.
Objective:
This systematic review and network meta-analysis aims to compare the effectiveness of various multi-sensory interventions, and to identify the optimal intervention for alleviating pain in premature infants.
Methods:
A comprehensive literature search was performed on August 19, 2024 to identify pertinent clinical trials. The Cochrane Risk of Bias (version 2) was used to assess the quality and potential bias of each included study. Network meta-analysis was used to assess the effectiveness of various interventions and to identify the optimal ones.
Results:
A total of 18 clinical trials involving 1408 premature infants were included. Three multi-sensory interventions were shown to be superior to routine practice in reducing pain among premature infants, including tactile-kinesthetic intervention, tactile-auditory intervention and tactile-visual-gustatory-olfactory intervention (all, P < 0.05). Among these interventions, tactile-kinesthetic intervention ranks the best for its effectiveness in alleviating procedural pain among premature infants. Subgroup network meta-analysis demonstrated that the tactile-visual-gustatory-auditory-olfactory intervention ranked the best for its effectiveness in reducing pain from invasive procedures, with the tactile-auditory intervention best for non-invasive procedures.
Conclusions:
Our study suggests that cautious assessment and identification should be prioritized to select appropriate multi-sensory interventions based on pain procedures, thus to effectively reduce pain in premature infants. Subsequent studies are needed to refine and optimize these strategies for broader application.
Prospero Registry:
CRD42024510352.
