Abstract

The various common nociceptive stimuli for the babies in the Neonatal intensive critical care are during intravenous catheterisation, blood sampling and vaccination. Pain contributes to immediate and late effects in them like hemodynamic fluctuations and b ehavioral changes. The aim of the study is to compare the behavioral and cardiovascular changes to pain between preterm and term neonates neonates. Methods: This is a cross sectional study done in the Department of Paediatrics in the Coimbatore Medical College & Hospital ,Coimbatore for a period of February 2021 to January 2022.The study participants who fulfilled the inclusion and the exclusion criteria were included in this study. The final sample size was 71.The participants were divided into 2 groups Preterm(36) and Term(35).Demographic details like name ,gestational age, sex ,day of life were taken. The pain response was assessed by NIPS score .Autonomic reactivity was assessed by heart rate and respiratory rate changes.The collected data was entered in the MS excel and statistics were done with SPSS 23.Categorical variables expressed in numbers and percentages and continuous variables were expressed in terms of mean and standard deviation.P value <0.05 is considered as significant. Results: Among the study participants male preponderance was seen (Preterm -19,Term -20).The mean birth weight of Preterm was 1.6±0.6 Kg and Term was 2.8±1.2 Kg.NIPS mean score of term babies was more compared to preterm babies and the difference was found to be statistically significant.Similary respiratory rate was higher in term babies.The heart rate in both preterm and term are found to be increased after nociceptive stimuli compared to before nociceptive stimuli. Conclusion: It is concluded from our study that the behavioral p ain score response during the Nociceptive stimuli showed a statistically significant difference between preterm and term neonates.Thus the gestational age strongly influences the pain response in neonates. Now many studies have been validated which can be used to avoid inter observer bias and other problems which arise due to this scale scale.

Description