Assessment of the Effect of EMLA Cream on Vein Puncture Pain Severity with Vein Catheter in the Patients Undergoing Cesarean Section: Randomized Placebo Controlled Trial

Background and Pain is the most common reason people seek health care. In fact، pain and the way to control it is one of the hygiene problems in the world. Vein Puncture is one of the most usual invasive procedures performed by nurses. Hence finding methods to decrease the pain caused by vein puncture is very crucial. This study was conducted to identify the effect of EMLA (Eutectic mixture of local anesthetics) cream on vein puncture pain severity with vein catheter in the patients undergoing cesarean section A randomized، placebo-controlled clinical trial was conducted on 60 women undergoing cesarean section in Imam Ali Hospital in Amol and referred from 9 April 2010 to 10 June 2010. They were selected sequential and randomly divided to EMLA group (E group) or Placebo group (P group) in equal numbers. Data collection tools included a demographic questionnaire، Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) to identify vein catheter insertion pain severity and a checklist for possible side effects of EMLA and Vaseline cream. Content and inter-rater methods were used for validity and reliability of the tools respectively The collected data were then analyzed using descriptive and analytic statistics using SPSS Software ver. 16. The pain of Vein Puncture with EMLA cream was significantly lower than that with the Vaseline cream (P<0. 001). In addition، a short term side effect (blanching) in 20% of subjects was detected with EMLA cream. Compared to Vaseline cream، EMLA cream application significantly reduces the pain associated with vein catheter insertion. Our study recommends the use of EMLA cream one hour before intravenous cannulation.