Buzzy Distraction During Venipuncture

Venipuncture is one of the most common iatrogenic painful and stressful procedures performed on children. Interventions aimed at reducing the distress related to this experience are widely and strongly recommended. Pain and anxiety management is even more essential because it may modify children's memory for procedural pain and the subsequent acceptance of later health care painful interventions. Distraction is the most studied psychological technique to relieve venipuncture related pain and distress, with a strong evidence supporting its efficacy in children and adolescents.

In recent years several studies showed the effectiveness of a specific tool named Buzzy® (MMJ Labs, Atlanta GA, USA), in relieving pain and distress in children. Buzzy combines distraction and physical analgesia (vibration and cold) and it was positively tested during venipuncture, intravenous cannulation and painful injections in children. Even though its efficacy it's well established, most of the published trials did not compare Buzzy with other interventions, so that little data are available about its usefulness compared with other distractions techniques.

Hand-held computers are reusable tools, which offer a technological-based active distraction. There is evidence supporting their used during painful procedures such as venipuncture and a recent published study showed that hand-held computer distraction was as effective as nurse-led passive distraction techniques in children.

The aim of this study is to compare the effectiveness of Buzzy versus hand-held computer in pain relief during venipuncture.