Pune: A study conducted by the City-based KEM Hospital research center has found that severe trouble increased from 22% in a baby aged 18 weeks to 61% in a 10-month-old baby after undergoing nasopharyngeal swab testing, the procedure used in testing for Various infections, including Covid-19.
It shows that the average ‘cry’ duration significantly increased from 23.03 seconds in infants aged 18 weeks to 52.6 seconds on those aged 10 months.
Based on this research and the use of higher nasopharyngeal swab testing, researchers say pain mitigation strategies can be adopted to make the procedure less invasive for infants.
Dr.
Anand Kawade, the research premium research, told TII, “This is an observational study that lodged in alternative phase IV and reduced the schedule of the dosage of pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV), where nasopharyngeal wipes were used to collect nasopharyngeal secretions.
From a baby.” He said, “Although this research is part of a trial on the PCV, the Swab collection procedure is the same as in Covid-19.
Because nasopharyngeal swabs are also collected from children for testing for Covid-19 on a large scale, this study is significant in terms of informing caregivers Primary, doctors and researchers to formulate the right pain relieve strategies, so that it can make the procedure less painful for children.
“Dr.
Kawade said that this research uses facial scale, legs, activity, crying, consolerability (FLACC) to arrive at results .
The Flacc scale is the measurement used to assess pain for children between the age of two months and seven years or individuals who cannot communicate their pain.
Nearly 425 registered babies for this study.
“In an 18-week-old baby, 98% of them have a Flac ‘0’ score before the start of the procedure, showing no signs of distress.
In a 10-month-old baby, 89% of participants have a Flacc ‘0’ score before starting from the swab collection procedure .
With the initiation of the procedure, 74% of infants aged 18 weeks achieved a score FLACC 4-6, indicating a moderate degree of difficulty, while 22% had a score of 7-10 shows FLACC severe distress level.
Only 3.5% had a score of 1-3 that Experience lighter distress, “Dr.
Girish Dayma, senior project manager, KEM, which is also part of research, said.
Among the 10-month-old babies, 61% of participants achieved the Flacc 7-10 score (severe rate of trouble) when the procedure was ongoing; 35.2% has a 4-6 FLACC score (medium trouble level), and only 3.6% has a Flacc 1-3 score (lighter trouble).
This study was recently published in the American Journal ‘Pediatric and Neonatal Pain, Access Journal of Access Open Wiley.