Psychology Commons^™

Randomized Clinical Trial Of Distraction For Infant Immunization Pain, Lindsey L. Cohen, Jill E. Maclaren, Beverly L. Fortson, Abby Friedman, Melissa Demore, Crystal S. Lim, Elisabeth Shelton, Balram Gangaram

Psychology Faculty Publications

Distraction has been shown to be an effective technique for managing pain in children; however, few investigations have examined the utility of this technique with infants. The goal of the current study was to investigate the effectiveness of movie distraction in reducing infants’ immunization distress. Participants were 136 infants (range = 1 to 21 months; M = 7.6 months, SD = 5.0 months) and their parents, all of whom were recruited when presenting for routine vaccinations. The parent-child dyads were randomly assigned to either a Distraction or Typical Care control condition. Infant and adult behaviors were assessed using a visual …