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

Objective: To assess the effect of Eutectic Mixture of Local Anaesthetics cream and rattle on soothing the vaccination pain on four-month-infants. Methods: 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. Results: 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). Conclusion: 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.Keywords: EMLA cream, Rattle, Vaccination