Use of tetanalgesia for pain assessment

Abstract

Vaccination is considered the most significant advance in the field of public health. However, it is well known that the process can be painful and generate an unpleasant sensation, leading to vaccine reluctance, especially in children. To increase vaccine acceptance, various non-pharmacological analgesic methods have been developed. One such method is tetanalgesia, which involves providing breastfeeding during vaccination. In the present study, 51 children from the San Miguelito population were investigated, who attended to comply with the current vaccination schedule. To assess the pain level experienced by infants undergoing this method, the Neonatal Infant Pain Scale (NIPS) and Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) were used. Subsequently, the SPSS application was used to tabulate the data and create graphs to facilitate the understanding of the results. The study’s findings were favorable for the research, showing that the use of tetanalgesia had an effect on the majority of the evaluated children. On the NIPS scale, 58,8 % of infants presented moderate pain, while on the VAS scale, 51 % experienced moderate to intense pain. These results demonstrate that the tetanalgesia method is valid for certain age groups.