A Quasi-Experimental Study to Evaluate the Effectiveness of Cold Application Prior to Intramuscular Injection on the Level of Needle Stick Pain among Adult Patients of a Selected Hospital, Gurgaon, Haryana

Introduction: Pain is highly unpleasant and very personal sensation. Every human being in the world has experienced some type or degree of pain during intramuscular injection. Among many non-pharmacological measures, application of cold reduces the ability of pain fibres to transmit pain impulses and reduce the pain associated with various types of injection. The main aim was to assess the effectiveness of cold application on the level of needle stick pain during intramuscular injection. The objectives of the study were: (1) To assess and compare the level of needle stick pain among patients undergoing intramuscular injection after cold application in the experimental group and without cold application in the control group. (2) To find association between the level of needle stick pain with selected demographic variables of experimental and control group. Methods: A quantitative approach using quasi-experimental post-test only control design was used. A non-probability purposive sampling technique had been used to select 60 subjects, out of which, 30 were assigned to experimental group and 30 to control group. Study was conducted at injection room of Civil Hospital, Gurgaon, Haryana. Results: The findings revealed that out of total 30 adult patients in experimental group 16 (53.3 %) had no pain, 13 (43.4 %) had mild pain and 1 (3.3 %) had moderate pain while receiving intramuscular injection and whereas out of total 30 adult patients in control group, 15 (50.1 %) had moderate pain, 11 (36.7 %) had mild pain and 2 (6.6 %) had severe pain and 2 (6.6 %) had no pain while receiving intramuscular injection. The level of needle stick pain mean score of experimental group was 0.933 ± 1.20 SD and the level of needle stick pain mean score in control group was 3.5 ± 1.97 SD which was found to be at significant at pless than0.01 level with a ‘t’ value of 6.153. There was a significant association found between educational background and post-test pain score while receiving intra