To Look or Not to Look at the Needle During Vaccination

University of Toronto

Status and phase: Unknown; Phase 3

Conditions: Vaccination

Treatments: Behavioral: Look away from the needle; Behavioral: Look at the needle

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT02937428

33392

Details and patient eligibility

About

It is common for people to advise individuals undergoing vaccination to look away from the needle to make them hurt less and be less scary. However, this advice is not backed up by research evidence. the purpose of this study is to learn about how looking away vs. looking at the needle during vaccination makes people feel. People will be randomized to 1 of 2 groups: look at the needle, look away. Then they will undergo vaccination and report on pain and fear experienced.

Full description

It is common for people to advise individuals undergoing vaccination to look away from the needle to make them hurt less and be less scary. However, this advice is not backed up by experimental research evidence. It is possible that looking away acts as a distraction and takes attention away from the needle, thus reducing pain. However, it is also possible that looking at the needle is better because it prevents people's imaginations from making them think it is worse than it actually is. To our knowledge, this is the first first randomized study to examine the effect of looking away vs. looking at the needle on pain and fear experienced during vaccinations. Adult university students undergoing routine flu vaccination will be included.

Enrollment: 160 estimated patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18+ years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• undergraduate and graduate students at the University of Toronto's Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy undergoing flu vaccination

Exclusion criteria

• less than 18 years of age or prior participation in the trial

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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160 participants in 4 patient groups

Look away and prefer to look

Experimental group

Description:

Participant who is self-identified as preferring to look at the needle is randomized to look away from the needle during vaccination

Treatment:

Behavioral: Look away from the needle

Look at needle and prefer to look

Active Comparator group

Description:

Participant who is self-identified as preferring to look at the needle is randomized to look at the needle during vaccination

Treatment:

Behavioral: Look at the needle

Look away and prefer to look away

Experimental group

Description:

Participant who is self-identified as preferring to look away from the needle is randomized to look away from the needle during vaccination

Treatment:

Behavioral: Look away from the needle

Look at needle and prefer to look away

Active Comparator group

Description:

Participant who is self-identified as preferring to look away from the needle is randomized to look at the needle during vaccination

Treatment:

Behavioral: Look at the needle