What is the most effective method of pain reduction during intravenous cannulation in children? A systematic review and meta-analysis study

Pain is one of the various outcomes of intravenous cannulation. There are various methods of pain reduction during intravenous cannulation. Still there is not any agreement about the most effective analgesic method. For this reason, the aim of this study was to determine the most effective method of pain reduction during intravenous cannulation in childrenn.
All previous relevant studies in the databases were reviewed using Cochrane protocol and sensitive and standard keywords such as pain, children and intravenous cannulation, from 1995 to 2013. The extraction and evaluation of studies were performed by two individuals. CONSORT checklist was used to evaluate the quality of the studies. Samples homogeneity was assessed using the tau-square estimates. The random effects model was used to report the pooled average estimates for the most effective method on pain reduction during intravenous cannulation.
systematic review of 14409 studies determined that only 30 studies had the inclusion criteria. Nineteen studies were entered the meta-analysis. Meta-analysis study showed that EMLA was the most effective method in comparing control/ placebo among the other various ones. Among the treatments comparison, IontophoresisLidocaine was the most effective in compare with EMLA.
EMLA cream was the most effective treatment in reducing the pain of intravenous cannulation. Although lidocaine injection methods such as Iontophoresis, as a new method, can produce more rapid, effective and satisfying pain reduction than other alternatives.