Anytime a patient needs a shot, like a vaccine or a flu shot, a nurse usually says, “Don’t look and it won’t hurt.” Many people have considered this nothing more than friendly advice, typically given to children to keep them from crying. However, a new study shows scientific evidence that not looking does actually reduce pain.
How we perceive pain
A group of German investigators has found that, in fact, your past experience with needle pricks, along with information you receive before an injection, shape your pain experience. Their research is published in the May issue of Pain.
“Throughout our lives, we repeatedly experience that needles cause pain when pricking our skin, but situational expectations, like information given by the clinician prior to an injection, may also influence how viewing needle pricks affects pain,” says lead author Marion Höfle, a doctoral student in the research Multisensory Integration group led by Dr. Daniel Senkowski, at the Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin and the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf.
Patients reported more pain and a more unpleasant feeling when they saw the needle before the injection. Researchers also noticed an autoimmune reaction, pupils dilated. This demonstrates that previous painful experiences with needles enhance unpleasantness of pain when viewing needle pricks.
How this could change your doctor’s visit
Researchers have deemed the “Don’t look” policy as sound advice, and with evidence backing the concept, they can attest that the old saying is acutally more than an old wives tale.
“Clinicians may be advised to provide information that reduces a patient’s expectation about the strength of forthcoming pain prior to an injection,” Höfle notes. She further states that, “because viewing a needle prick leads to enhanced pain perception as well as to enhanced autonomic nervous system activity, we’ve provided empirical evidence in favor of the common advice not to look at the needle prick when receiving an injection.”
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