Background and aim: Venipuncture for blood collection elicits fear and pain in children. We investigated factors that affect satisfaction with health checkups that included blood collection in healthy 7-8-year-old children who underwent blood collection with topical anesthesia.
Method: Two studies, one questionnaire survey, and the other structured interviews were conducted to gather insights and understand the emotions of 492 and 20 children, respectively.
Results: We found that the following six points can be applied to encourage children to assess their experience of blood collection positively: (1) prior information using a pamphlet; (2) telling the children that the volume of blood drawn will be small; (3) carefully explaining the risk and benefit of topical anesthesia; (4) conducting the blood collection process swiftly; (5) praising and thanking the children's effort and cooperation; and (6) explaining the results of the research to the children if their blood is going to be used for research.
Conclusion: The findings indicate that with appropriate measures to reduce pain and fear, children's initial negative feelings toward blood collection can be replaced by positive feelings after the procedure.
Keywords: blood collection; informed assent; needle fears; topical anesthesia.
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