Salivary Cortisol and Pain Scoring to Compare the Efficacy of Oral Dextrose and Pacifier for Neonatal Pain Control = Salivary Cortisol and Pain Scoring to Compare the Efficacy of Oral Dextrose and Pacifier for Neonatal Pain Control

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Objective: Pain assessment usually involves the use of subjective pain scales; as their use may be associated with inter-/intra-observer bias, objective pain measurements, such as assessment of cortisol response to pain, are needed. This study aimed to compare the efficacy of oral dextrose and a pacifier in neonatal pain control using an objective measurement of salivary cortisol level and subjective pain scoring.
Methods: This prospective, randomized, partially blinded clinical trial included healthy newborns from a nursery (n=142). Blood was sampled using a lancet and newborns were randomly assigned to four groups by drawing lots: control (n=33), sterile water (n=35), 25% dextrose (n=35), and pacifier group (n=39). For all groups, neonatal infant pain scale, neonatal facial coding system, and premature infant pain profile scores were evaluated before, during, and 2 minutes after newborn screening test by two independent observers who watched recorded videos. Moreover, samples of saliva were collected before and 30 minutes after the pain procedure, and salivary cortisol level was measured using an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay.
Results: Subjective pain scores were not statistically different among the four groups before, during, and after blood sampling using a lancet. However, the salivary cortisol level in the 25% dextrose group was significantly lower than that in the other groups (P=0.045).
Conclusion: Oral administration of 25% dextrose solution for pain control during the newborn screening test led to a significantly lower salivary cortisol level than the use of sterile water or a pacifier. However, no difference in pain scores was found among groups.