Original articles

Vaccine-related pain: randomised controlled trial of two injection techniques

Moshe Ipp¹, Anna Taddio², Jonathan Sam³, Morton Gladbach⁴ and Patricia C Parkin¹

¹ Division of Pediatric Medicine and Pediatric Outcomes Research Team (PORT), Department of Pediatrics, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, Canada
² Leslie Dean Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada
³ Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada
⁴ Department of Pediatrics, Division of Pediatric Medicine, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Canada

Correspondence to:
Moshe Ipp, Department of Paediatrics, Division of Paediatric Medicine, The Hospital for Sick Children, 555 University Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5G 1X8; mm.ipp{at}utoronto.ca

Objective: To compare acute pain response during immunisation in infants using a slow standard of care injection technique versus a rapid pragmatic technique.

Design: Randomised controlled trial.

Setting: Single-centre, urban paediatric primary care practice.

Subjects: Healthy infants 4–6 months of age receiving their routine DPTaP-Hib immunisation.

Interventions: Standard of care group: slow aspiration prior to injection, slow injection and slow withdrawal. Pragmatic group: no aspiration, rapid injection and rapid withdrawal.

Main outcome measures: Immediate infant pain measured by the Modified Behavior Pain Scale (MBPS), crying and parent/paediatrician visual analogue scale (VAS).

Results: 113 infants participated; there were no observed differences in age, birth order or prior analgesic use. Mean MBPS scores (95% confidence interval (CI)) were higher (p<0.001) for the standard group compared to the pragmatic group, 5.6 (5 to 6.3) vs 3.3 (2.6 to 3.9). The standard group was more likely to cry, 47/57 (82%) vs 24/56 (43%), to cry longer, median (interquartile range (IQR)) 14.7 s (8.7–35.6) vs 0 s (0–11.30), and to take longer to have the vaccine injected, median (IQR) 8.8 s (7.9–10.3) vs 0.9 s (0.8–1.1), p<0.001 for all comparisons. The median (IQR) VAS scores by parents and paediatricians were higher for the standard group: VAS parent, 3.5 (1.6–5.5) vs 1.9 (0.1–3.1) and VAS paediatrician, 2.8 (2.0–5.1) vs 1.4 (0.2–2.4). There were no adverse events.

Conclusion: Immunisation using a pragmatic rapid injection technique is less painful than a slow standard of care technique and should be recommended for routine intramuscular immunisations.

Keywords: needle aspiration; injection speed; immunisation; pain

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This article has been cited by other articles:

• Ipp, M., Parkin, P. C., Lear, N., Goldbach, M., Taddio, A. (2009). Order of Vaccine Injection and Infant Pain Response. Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med 163: 469-472 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
• Santoro, N, Grandone, A (2008). Vaccine-related pain: picking up the child soon after the injection reduces the time of crying. Arch. Dis. Child. 93: 449-450 [Full Text]  
• Kemp, C. (2008). Injection technique reduces vaccine-related pain. AAP News 29: 2-2 [Full Text]