Grant: Travel Awards - Institute Community Support

Children in Canada receive up to 20 needles before their second birthday. Many kids experience pain and distress from these needles. Some kids also experience fear before those needles. Understanding how much fear kids have before their needles will help us to design interventions so they are not so scared of needles. This study investigated fear and anxiety before needles in preschoolers. The study has three main aims: First we wanted to understand how much fear preschoolers have before a needle procedure, second, we wanted to investigate whether boys and girls differ in their amount of fear they have before a needle, and lastly we wanted to see whether parents and kids report the same amount of fear and worry before the needle. For this study we videotaped 202 preschoolers and their parent during their 4 year immunization. We transcribed these videotapes and coded what parents and children were saying. We found that before getting a needle, 53% of kids were showing some kind of distress. The most frequent kind of distress were saying they didn't want the needle, asking for information, or saying that it was going to hurt. Many children also cried and tried to push their parents or doctors away. Girls cried more than boys before the needle. Parents 'ratings of their child's worry was related to how much their kid said they didn't want the needle. Parents' who were more worried themselves, rated their children as being more worried. This study found that many kids are scared and upset before their needles, especially girls. Parents' worry may have an effect on their child's worry about needles. We need to do more research to understand these relationships.