Background and Aims Venipuncture is a frequent source of painful procedures for children and it has been well documented that children react to pain with a combination of physiologic and behavioral responses. It has been known that children are unable to describe pain and at particularly high risk for inadequate pain management. FLACC scale is a widely used pain assessment tool for measurement of pain infants and young children. FLACC assess 5 behavioral parameters including facial expression, leg position, activity, crying and consolability. Vibration Anesthesia Device™ (VAD) is a device specifically designed for management of pain. The objective of this study was to investigate the efficacy of VAD on pain scores assessed with FLACC during and after venipuncture procedure.

Methods Study participants were 60 healthy children undergoing venipuncture procedure for routine laboratory tests. Children were divided into two groups as follows: Group 1 (n=30) were placed vibration anesthesia device 5 to 10 cm proximally through the site of venipuncture and group 2 (n=30) underwent venipuncture only. A single observer rated pain responses using FLACC before, during and after the procedure.

Results Groups did not differ by age and sex. There were no differences between pain scores of groups assessed by FLACC scale before, during and after venipuncture procedure.

Conclusions We assessed the efficacy of a vibration anesthesia device and our results suggested that this device did not reduced pain scores in children during and after venipuncture procedure.