Effect of acupressure on procedural pain before heel lancing in neonates

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the effect of acupressure applied to UB60 and K3 acupuncture points in order to relieve the procedural pain caused by heel lancing blood sampling process in the term newborns. METHODS: The data were collected by using the Information Form and the Neonatal Infant Pain Scale. Acupressure applied for 3 min before heel lancing blood sampling in the newborns in the experimental group (n = 31). No intervention was applied to newborns in the control group (n = 32). RESULTS: A significant difference was found between mean scores of the newborns in the control and acupressure group in favor of the acupressure group in terms of heart rate during and after the procedure, oxygen saturation before, during and after the procedure, duration of crying during and after the procedure (P < 0.05). It was found that there was a significant difference between groups in terms of Neonatal Infant Pain Scale mean scores during (P = 0.001) and after the procedure (P < 0.05), and the difference was found to be in favor of the acupressure group. CONCLUSION: As a result, acupressure was found to be an effective method in relieving pain caused by heel lancing blood sampling in newborns.