Oral Sucrose Administration to Reduce Pain Response During Immunization

Running head: PAIN REDUCTION DURING IMMUNIZATION 1
Oral sucrose administration to reduce pain response during immunization
Name
Institutional Affiliation

PAIN REDUCTION DURING IMMUNIZATION 2
1. Background of the study
a) The main health concern in this study is the pain that results from immunisation
procedures mainly done during childhood. These painful procedures can result in various
consequences such as fear, anxiety and distress among children and their parents as well.
Needle phobia, in particular, has been found to be the commonest result of painful
immunisations (McMurty et al. 2015). This will, in turn, affect their health-seeking
behaviour in the long run. This can start merely by lack of compliance to scheduled
immunisations and in future, avoidance of medical care. Several interventions can be
employed to reduce distress to the infants. They include psychological interventions,
pharmacologic interventions (such as the use of oral sucrose) and physical interventions
by use of specific injection techniques.
b) Results from previous studies indicate very minimal analgesic properties of oral sucrose
on children. They, however, show that it has the capacity to reduce pain in the newborns.
Previous study results also conclude that non-pharmacologic interventions can be used to
ease the needle pain during immunisation (McNair, (2013).
c) Results from this study would be significant in reducing pain and anxiety associated with
vaccine injections, therefore preventing parents and their infants from skipping scheduled
immunisations. This will also improve turnout for vaccination among parents which will
play a bigger role in the prevention of preventable diseases. This is a study that, if results
turn out positive, will improve the health seeking behaviour of people right from infantry
into adulthood. Immunization being a global health strategy with virtually every infant on
the planet receiving a number of vaccines, this study becomes even more useful.

PAIN REDUCTION DURING IMMUNIZATION 3
The research design
2. Overview of the research design
a) This study aimed to find out the effect of oral sucrose solution on the crying times of 16-
19-month-olds. The crying times would be a direct indicator of distress in the
participants.
b) A semi-experimental design is employed. This type of design makes use of the scientific
method to examine an intervention experimentally.
c) A characteristic of this design is its ability to employ the use of randomisation of
subjects or sample units into control and treatment units. The outcomes from the two
groups are then compared. Field experiments as a research design are thought to have a
higher external validity compared to laboratory experiments. The design has several
strengths in that it’s more likely to reflect what happens in real life due to its natural
setting. The likelihood of various demand characteristics affecting findings with this kind
of design is also reduced. However, an undesired feature encountered is the limited
control over extraneous or external variables that may make the findings biased.
d) This design also met the aim of the study since randomising the recruited children and
infants and blinding of nurses, parents and investigators ensured any interference from
them. A randomised control trial like this facilitated comparison of the distress as a result
of injections between those participants who received the oral sucrose solution and those
who didn’t receive. This enabled the researchers to make deductions of whether the oral
sucrose solution has analgesic effects on children beyond the newborn age or not.
Reduction in the duration of cries in those participants who had received the solution