Which site is least painful during intravenous cannulation?

Abstract

Aim The aim was to determine the least painful cannulation site in patients via the Visual Analogue Scale.Methods Of 104 patients (53 women) admitted to the Emergency Department of Meram Medical School of Necmettin Erbakan University, 45 were cannulated through antecubital site, 33 by wrists and 26 via dorsal. No difference was detected between groups as to age and gender. All cases were cannulated by the same nurse using pink cannulas. The patients were asked to mark the severity of pain during procedure on the Visual Analogue Scale where scores range from 0 to 10.Results When a significant difference was found between the groups via the Kruskal-Wallis test as to the Visual Analogue Scale scores, the Mann-Whitney-U test with Boferroni correction
was performed. Therefore, while the pain on antecubital site was found to be significantly lower during cannulation compared to that found on wrist and dorsal, no difference was found between the pain scores detected on wrist and dorsal.Conclusion The antecubital site, a commonly used area for cannulation, was determined to be the least painful area when compared to other sites. It provides easy access to the vein, which may why it is commonly used, and may also be one of the reasons. It is the least painful area during cannulation. In the present study performed in 104 patients, the antecubital area was significantly the
least painful cannulation site compared to wrist and dorsal. In patients required to be cannulated, the antecubital site is considered preferable due to painlessness unless specific complications are present.

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