Cryoanalgesia for Reducing Unconscious Patients' Pain During Arterial Puncture.

Arterial puncture is a painful procedure performed to assess patients' respiratory status. Pain is a stressful situation for unconscious patients as they cannot communicate their feeling verbally. To control patients' pain and prevent the adverse effects of painkillers, nonpharmacological pain management strategies have been solicited. The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of cryoanalgesia on unconscious patients' pain during arterial puncture. We adopted a quasi-experimental one-group research design. A sample of 86 unconscious patients in a surgical intensive care unit were recruited in this study. The intervention was applying an ice pack over the puncture site for 5 minutes before the arterial puncture procedure. Pain was assessed for 2 times; before and after application of cryoanalgesia. A statistically significant difference in participants' pain scores between pre-tests and post-tests was noted. For the intubated ventilated participants, the mean pain score before and after applying cryoanalgesia was 5.26 versus 4.00 (P ≤ .05). For the non-intubated or intubated non-ventilated participants, the mean pain score was 6.66 versus 4.63 (P ≤ .05). Cryoanalgesia is a feasible and effective method incorporate during arterial puncture along with standard procedure elements to achieve maximum pain reduction for unconscious patients during arterial punctures.