Background: Intravenous (IV) injection often causes pain, fear, and anxiety in pediatrics. Virtual reality (VR) is a relatively new intervention that can be used to provide distraction during or to prepare patients for IV injections, however, so far no meta-analysis has been conducted to examine the evidence regarding the effectiveness of VR in reducing pain in pediatric IV injection.

Methods: The search in electronic databases of PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, and the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials was established on 7 August 2022. The methodological quality of the studies was measured by the Delphi checklist. Chi-squared (Chi2) test and measure its quantity by the I2 statistic were applied for measuring the heterogeneity across studies. A summary measure of the mean difference in pain scores between virtual reality and control groups was obtained using a random-effects model. All statistical analyses were set at a significance level of 0.05 using Stata software, version 14.

Results: In total, nine studies were included. Findings reported interventions of virtual reality during intravenous placement among pediatrics. The meta-analysis of the difference in means of the pain score between the intervention and control groups showed significant reductions in the virtual reality group (MD 0.47; 95% CI: 0.3, 0.65; I 2 = 9.1%). There was no heterogeneity among the included studies.

Conclusion: Our results suggested that the use of VR is effective in reducing the pain of IV injection in pediatrics. There was no heterogeneity among studies that reported the effectiveness of using VR in reducing IV injection pain in pediatrics. The Delphi checklist was used to measure study quality.

Jenabi E, Bashirian S, Salehi AM, Rafiee M, Bashirian M. Virtual reality for pain reduction during intravenous injection among pediatrics: a systematic review and meta-analysis of controlled clinical trials. Clin Exp Pediatr. 2023 Jun 14. doi: 10.3345/cep.2022.01193. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 37321586.