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Randomized Controlled Trial
. 2020 Dec:61:102904.
doi: 10.1016/j.iccn.2020.102904. Epub 2020 Jul 9.

The effects of auditory interventions on pain and comfort in premature newborns in the neonatal intensive care unit; a randomised controlled trial

Ayşe Kahraman  1 , Merve Gümüş  2 , Melek Akar  3 , Melike Sipahi  3 , Hatice Bal Yılmaz  2 , Zümrüt Başbakkal  2
Affiliations
Randomized Controlled Trial

The effects of auditory interventions on pain and comfort in premature newborns in the neonatal intensive care unit; a randomised controlled trial

Ayşe Kahraman et al. Intensive Crit Care Nurs. 2020 Dec.

Abstract

Objective: This study investigated the effects of three auditory interventions; white noise, recorded mother's voice, and MiniMuffs, applied during a heel lance on pain and comfort in premature infants in the neonatal intensive care units.

Design and methods: This experimental, parallel, randomised controlled research was conducted in a state hospital tertiary-level neonatal intensive care unit. The sample comprised sixty-four premature infants with gestational ages of 31-36 weeks. The infants were randomly assigned to four groups: i) white noise, ii) recorded mother's voice, iii) MiniMuffs, and iv) control. Pain and comfort of newborns were evaluated according to the Neonatal Infant Pain Scale (NIPS) and the COMFORTneo scale. Oxygen saturation, heart rate, and crying time were also measured.

Results: The mean of oxygen saturation levels in the white noise, recorded mother's voice, and MiniMuffs group were higher than the control group. The heart rate, crying time, mean NIPS score, COMFORTneo score of the premature neonates in the white noise, recorded mother's voice, and MiniMuffs groups were significantly lower than the control group (p < .001).

Conclusion: Auditory interventions used during heel lance reduce the pain and increase the comfort of the premature infants. White noise is extremely effective in preventing infants's pain.

Keywords: Auditory interventions; Comfort; Mother’s voice; Neonatal intensive care unit; Pain; White noise.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Comment in

  • Newborns' voice: We need pain management!
    Chen H, da Palma Afonso E, Zhou J. Chen H, et al. Intensive Crit Care Nurs. 2021 Feb;62:102976. doi: 10.1016/j.iccn.2020.102976. Epub 2020 Nov 27. Intensive Crit Care Nurs. 2021. PMID: 33257216 No abstract available.

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