Toy‐Mediated Distraction: Clarifying the Role of Distraction Agent and Preneedle Distress in Toddlers

Abstract

These results suggest that, when being held by a parent, distraction using a toy does not result in lower pain scores in the context of immunization, regardless of who offers the distraction. Furthermore, these findings raise the notion that if clinicians ensured toddlers were regulated before attempting an immunization, postneedle pain may be significantly reduced.

Preschool children's coping responses and outcomes in the vaccination context: child and caregiver transactional and longitudinal relationships

“…A similar pattern was found for caregiver coping-and distress-promoting behaviors in study 2. In line with previous research, 1,17,25 children's pain strongly predicts subsequent children's pain prospectively. An integration of these findings with a focus on clinical implications will be presented in our conclusion.…”

“…In terms of entering child distress behaviors from the directly preceding time epoch into the models, this choice was made because a critical assumption in creating the path models was that young children's pain responding during painful procedures has been established to predict subsequent pain responding to that procedure. 1,17,25 Thus, all path models included a predictor variable of preschooler's pain-related distress from the closest time point preceding each dependent variable of interest. To parallel this, the same was done with both coping-promoting and distresspromoting caregiver variables.…”

A cross-sectional examination of the relationships between caregiver proximal soothing and infant pain over the first year of life

“…However, unlike in the aforementioned study, the present study controlled for infant behavioral distress prior to the injections as well as immediate reactivity post injections. As such, it appears possible that the moderate relationship observed between infant pain and caregiver proximal soothing might have only been found because these two variables were likely related to additional unmeasured variables: pre-needle distress and initial pain reactivity, which the present study, as well as other studies [1,31], have shown are related to pain reactivity and pain regulation, respectively.…”

“…Specifically, given that this study, as well as two other studies [1,31], found that infant behavioral distress prior to an injection predicts greater pain reactivity, it is possible that It was also found that higher levels of pain reactivity predicted greater subsequent proximal soothing for the 4, 6, and 12 month infants, suggesting that, at these ages, caregivers are "tuning in" to their infants' distress signals and responding in manners contingent to these distress cues. Contingent responsivity has been linked to optimal future developmental outcomes for infants (i.e.…”

Developing a medical picture book for reducing venipuncture distress in preschool‐aged children

“…For example, Luthy (Luthy, Beckstrand, & Peterson, ; Luthy, Sperhac, Faux, & Miner, ) concluded that the perceived pain and anxiety associated with vaccination is a major reason parents are disinclined toward vaccinating their children. Therefore, techniques to reduce parents' perception of their children's pain or anxiety during vaccination are beneficial (Hillgrove‐Stuart, Riddell, Horton, & Greenberg, ; Luthy, Beckstrand, & Pulsipher, ; O'Brien, Taddio, Ipp, Goldbach, & Koren, ) and promote timely returns for subsequent vaccinations. Most children consider a needle to be one of their most painful and feared experiences (Hart & Bossert, ; Vos et al, ; Zieger, Praskova, Busse, & Barth, ).…”