Factors Related to a Decrease in Pain Felt by Newborns during Blood Sampling after Birth

Introduction: The goal of this research project was to investigate which of the following factors could be associated with pain felt by newborns during blood sampling done a few hours after birth: experience of the nurse, gestational age, mode of delivery, and listening to classical music.

Materials and Methods: A clinical experience was realized on 40 newborns born in the summer of 2017 at Hôpital Charles-Lemoyne in Longueuil, Canada. The group of 40 newborns was divided randomly in two subgroups of 20, one listening to calm classical music during the blood sampling and the other not. The number of years of experience of the nurse taking the blood was recorded as well as the gestation age. For each newborn, we evaluated the pain during the blood sampling, as measured under the neonatal infant pain scale (NIPS). Scores range from 0 to 7 (0–2 indicates mild to no pain, 3–4 mild to moderate pain, and 5–7 severe pain). To decide if a factor was significantly related or not to the pain score, we performed a statistical regression analysis of this score on the following four variables of interest (with the various interactions present in the model): mode of delivery (0 if vaginal, 1 by cesarean), experience of the nurse (0 if  < 2 years, 1 if ≥2), presence of music (1 with music, 0 without music), and gestational age (0 if  < 40 weeks, 1 if ≥40).

Results: Results are summarized in [Table 1]. The only two factors that could significantly decrease the pain of the newborns were the experience of the nurse doing the blood sampling (p-value = 0.026) and the interaction between experience and music (p-value = 0.047).

Conclusion: According to our data, having blood sample taken by an experienced nurse is a key factor contributing to reducing the pain felt by a newborn, even more so when classical music is delivered during the maneuvers.

Keywords: nurse experience, music, pain, newborn

Table 1 Results

Source	Somme des carrés	ddl	Carré moyen	F	Signification
	de type III
Modèle corrigé	122,882	12	10,240	1,370	0.255
Constante	243,754	1	243,754	32,604	0.000
Gestational age	3,369	1	3,369	0.451	0.509
Music alone	18,040	1	18,040	2,413	0.135
Nurse experience	42,763	1	42,763	5,720	0.026
Mode of delivery	9,132	1	9,132	1,221	0.282
Gestational age and music	6,891	1	6,891	0.922	0.348
Gestational age and nurse experience	27,000	1	27,000	3,611	0.071
Gestational age and mode of delivery	0.000	1	0.000	0.000	1.000
Music and nurse experience	33,231	1	33,231	4,445	0.047
Music and mode of delivery	7,922	1	7,922	1,060	0.315
Nurse experience and mode of delivery	0.980	1	0.980	0.131	0.721
Erreur	157,000	21	7,476
Total	598,000	34
Total corrigé	279,882	33