The Effect of Mother's Voice on Arterial Blood Sampling Induced Pain in Neonates Hospitalized in Neonate Intensive Care Unit

BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVE: Due to devastating effects of pain in neonates, it is very important to ease it though safe and feasible methods. This study was to determine the effect of familiar auditory stimuli on the arterial blood sampling (ABS) induced pain in term neonates.

RESEARCH METHOD: This study was done on 30 newborns hospitalized in neonate intensive care unit (NICU) of a hospital in Tehran. Research samples were selected by using convenience sampling and randomly divided into two groups of control and test. In the test group, the recorded mothers' voices were played for the newborns before and after blood sampling procedure. Then, pain measures were recorded 10 minutes before, during and 10 minutes after blood collection based on Neonatal Infant Pain Scale (NIPS); then the pain level changes were reviewed and studied.

FINDINGS: The findings showed significant differences between the control and test groups that indicating the effect of mother's voice on reducing the pain of neonates during the ABS (p<0.005).

CONCLUSION: Research findings demonstrate that mother's voice reduces ABS induced pain in the term neonates.