Painful procedures and relieving measures in NICU

Abstract

Objective: To describe the painful procedures and relieving measures in newborns admitted at the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). Methods: Prospective studyof 52 neonates admitted at the NICU from May to August 2005; data were obtained from the patient’s files. The painful procedures and the respective pain-relieving measures are described.The qualitative variables were represented by their relative and absolute frequencies and the quantitative variables, by means, minimum and maximum values. Results: Mean hospital stay duration was 20 days. The most frequent diagnoses were respiratory distress syndrome,digestive malformation, prematurity and sepsis. 1,549 painful procedures were performed(mean per patient = 30) and relieving measures were carried out in 56.7% of these. The most frequent procedures were venoclysis (41.4%) and blood collection (21.1%). Analgesia was used in around half of the cases. The most commonly employed analgesic drugs were dipyrone and fentanyl. Non-medicamentous measures were not employed. Conclusions: Painful procedures were frequent during the hospital stay, and each neonate was submitted, on average, to 30procedures. Pain-relieving measures were employed in 56.7% of the procedures, whereas43.3% of them were carried out with no analgesia. Medicamentous measures, mainly dipyrone and fentanyl, were the only form of pain relief. We suggest increasing the use of analgesic measures in these neonates in order to treat the pain, and emphasized the importance of the prevention the late pain-related outcomes experienced in this age range. Simple measures such as oral glucose solution or breast milk can be used as an additional strategy.