Pain in connection with capillary blood test at different sites in the palm

There are studies suggesting that fear of blood and injury is associated with less frequent self-testing; by reducing pain when measuring blood glucose the number of measurements can probably increase. The aim of this study was to investigate whether or not there were any differences regarding pain at different test sites in the palm. Twenty type 1 diabetes subjects pricked themselves at four different sites in the palm in the non-dominant hand in a randomised order with the Freestyle ® punction device loaded with BD Microfine+ lancets. Pain was evaluated by the subjects using the Pain-O-Meter ® . The result (n=80) showed no statistically significant difference in pain score between the investigated sites. The level of sensory pain was reported: shooting (n=36), no pain (n=27), searing (n=8), soaring (n=5), pressing (n=2), aching (n=1) and burning (n=1); 86% (n=69) of the pricked sites were experienced as no pain at all. This study shows that pain in connection with capillary blood test is low as measured by the Pain-O-Meter. There are no significant differences in the pain experienced at different sites in the palm. More studies need to be done using different punction devices and more sites need to be investigated.