Comparison of entonox and transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) in labor pain: a randomized clinical trial study

Abstract

Aim: The aim of performing this study was comparison of Entonox and transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) in labor pain in Zanjan city, Iran.

Materials and methods: This clinical trial study was conducted on 120 pregnant women in Zanjan-Iran, 2016. The patients were randomly divided (by method of 1:1:1) into three groups (each group 40 patients): First group was TENS group; the second group was Entonox group and control group were choose from the patients that had a physiological delivery. They did not want to use analgesia. All the analyses were done using SPSS (version 23).

Results: Before intervention the pain severity between three group was relatively same (p = .78). After intervention, pain score was significantly higher in control group compared to other two groups (p = .005), but the differences between mean Apgar score between three groups was not significant (p = .59). Also, both Entonox and TENS had significantly lower pain compared control group (p = .005), but there was no significant difference between Entonox and TENS in regard of pain score (p = .997).

Conclusions: Our findings reported that two groups of Entonox and TENS had similar effect on pain relief and decreased significantly pain scores. Therefore, TENS methods as a non-drug pain relief method can propose to women for relief of labor pain.

Keywords: Entonox; labor pain; transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation.