Making children watch TV while they are being given injections might help in distracting them from the pain. Researchers from the University of Siena, Italy studied 69 children who were undergoing blood tests. They found that when the children were shown cartoons during the procedure, it distracted them enough to ease their pain. What was surprising was that even mothers couldn't soothe their children nearly as well as television did. The study found that children's pain was almost as great when their mothers were near, offering comforting words and caresses, as when their moms merely stood in the room. It's possible that a mother's own emotions keep her from effectively distracting and calming her child. The researchers randomly assigned 69, 7 to 12-year-olds to one of three groups. Some had blood drawn while their mothers stood by, offering no distraction; in a second group, the mothers comforted their children during the procedure; and in the third group, children were shown a cartoon movie for distraction. Afterward, the children were asked to score their pain level on a visual scale from 0 to 100. Children in the TV group rated their pain much lower than those in the other two groups; on average the TV group scored nearly 8.91, versus 23.04 in the no-distraction group and 17.39 in the mother-soothed group. Mothers also believed their children suffered less pain when allowed to watch TV. Pain involves both a stimulus that sends a message to the brain - like a needle into an arm vein - and the brain's processing of that information. When the brain is distracted, this changes a person's perception of pain. The findings suggest that virtual reality technology can keep the brain from processing pain signals during an uncomfortable medical procedure. The findings support the benefit of introducing a distracting environment during minor painful procedures in children. But parents still matter. Even if mothers didn't ease their children of pain in this study, children still benefit from knowing their parents are with them in times of stress.
Archives of Disease in Childhood,
August 2006