No pain, much to gain!!

Background: Vaccination is an integral aspect of a pediatrician's practice. The fear associated withpain is a common problem. Alleviating this pain, not only puts the child at ease but also reduces theapprehension some parents have. Our objective was to evaluate local analgesic use during childhoodimmunization, its efficacy, and assessing how it serves as an advantage to the patient, theparents/guardian, and the medical personnel. Methodology: It was a randomized study. Data wascollected for a period of 1 year, from August 2018 to August 2019. Children from birth to 18 yearswere divided into 2 groups: case (local anesthetic i.e Lidocaine aerosol applied) and control (no localanesthetics applied). They were immunized as per NIS/IAP. The pain was assessed by a standardpain chart (Modified Behavioural Pain Scale (BPS). Result: Totally (including IM, SC, and IDinjections), the Local anesthesia group Median pain score was 6 and the No Local anesthesia groupMedian pain score was 8. There was a significant difference in pain scores between the two groups.Conclusion: The present study showed that local anesthetics could be applied quickly and withease. There was a significant difference in pain scores between the two groups (higher score beingin the group in which local anesthetics weren’t used). The reduction in the pain score, in turn,showed a significant difference in the attitude of the child, parent, as well as medical personnel.