THE EFFECT OF BREASTFEEDING ON PAINFUL RESPONSE AMONG INFANTS (0-6 MONTHS) UNDERGOING VENEPUNCTURE: AN EXPERIMENTAL STUDY IN BIHAR, INDIA.

A quasi-experimental study was conducted primarily to assess the effect of breastfeeding on painful responses among infants (0-6 months) undergoing venepuncture. The secondary objective was to nd the association between the effect of breastfeeding on painful responses and the selected demographic variables. The study was conducted among 70 Infants who fullled the inclusion criteria and a convenient sampling method was adopted. The infants were assigned to the experimental and control groups by casual assignment where the rst sample was assigned to the experimental group the next sample was assigned to the control group and so on. The pain responses were observed and recorded using a FLACC Scale simultaneously during venepuncture in both groups. In the experimental group, breastfeeding was given to the infants during venepuncture, and no intervention was given to the infants in the control group. JAMOVI software is used for data analyses. The study result reveals that there was a statistically signicant difference (t=10.7, p<0.001) in the mean post-test pain score of the Experimental Group and Control Group and a statistically signicant association between the Gender of the infants and Post Test Pain Scale Score with chi-square value 6.09 and degree of freedom 2 with 0.048 level of signicance. The study concluded that the Experimental Group receiving breastfeeding perceives less pain compared to the Control Group. So, breastfeeding is effective in reducing the pain response of infants (0-6 months) undergoing venepuncture.