Effectiveness of dry heat application on pain among patients undergoing intravenous cannulation in a selected hospital

Abstract

The present study was conducted to assess the effectiveness of dry heat application on pain among patients undergoing intravenous cannulation in a selected hospital, Perinthalmanna. Objectives of the study were to evaluate the effectiveness of dry heat application on pain among patients undergoing intravenous cannulation and to associate the selected variables with pain among patients undergoing intravenous cannulation. The investigator adopted post-test only control group design for this study. The investigator has chosen 80 samples from patients undergoing intravenous cannulation in MES Medical College Hospital. A structured interview schedule and an assessment data sheet were used to collect data about selected variables and control group was given all routine cares prior to intravenous cannulation and pain was assessed using a numerical pain scale. Whereas experimental group was given dry heat application for 10 minutes by using a hot water bag along with other routine cares, on the selected site prior to intravenous cannulation. Pain was assessed after insertion of IV cannula using the same scale. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used for data analyses and the level of significance was set at ≤ 0.05. The study result was that mean pain score of experimental group was 2.40 and the mean pain score of control group was 3.88. And the Mann Witney‘s U test score for effect of dry heat on pain was 329 at p-value <0.001. Based on the present study, the researcher concluded that there was a significant difference in the mean score of pain between the experimental group and control group of patients undergoing intravenous cannulation and hence, dry heat application was found effective in reducing pain during IV cannulation.