The effect of local heat application before the intravenous catheterization on the patient pain, anxiety and satisfaction

A quasi-experimental study was conducted to determine the effect of local heat application before the intravenous (IV) catheterization on the patient pain, anxiety and satisfaction in the Oncology Clinic, Farabi Hospital, Karadeniz Technical University. Firstly, research ethics committee approval was obtained before the research application. Totally 80 patients, 40 of which is considered for the test group and the rest is for the control group, and the each group is suitable for the sample criteria, were involved in this study. The heat application having digital moist heating pad for ten minutes was practiced by the researcher to the extremity, in which catheter is inserted before IV catheterization, of the patients, who were included in the test group, but any application was not practiced to the patients, who were included in the control group. IV catheterization was applied by the nurse who was informed about the standard procedure of this application. The related data were compiled by means of data collection form, which was prepared based on the literature. Data were analyzed by appropriate statistical methods using the computer software SPSS version 15.0 for Windows. In the result of these analyses, it was understood clearly that the local heat application before IV catheterization alleviated the patient pain (p<0.05), however, it had not any effect on their anxiety and satisfaction (p>0.05). As a result, the local heat application before the IV catheterization is recommended for the situations in which it is difficult to see the veins and to perform the IV catheterization. Keywords: Pain, anxiety, patient satisfaction, Intravenous catheterization, local heat application