Jordana Waxman1, Miranda G. DiLorenzo1, Rebecca Pillai Riddell1, Hartley Garfield1
1) Canada
Background and aims: Despite multidimensional infant pain scales being pervasive in the hospital setting, no research has investigated the associations between behavioural and physiological indexes in typically developing infants within a pain context. The aim of this study is to provide preliminary data on the relationship between healthy 12-month old infants’ behaviour and heart rate variability during vaccination.
Methods: The data is part of an ongoing longitudinal study that follows caregivers and infants through the second year of life (12, 18 and 24 months; N= 51) during their well baby visits. Behavioural and cardiac data were simultaneously collected for 1-minute pre-vaccination and 3-minutes post-vaccination. Behavioural distress was measured using the Face Legs Activity Cry Consolability (FLACC) coding system, during sequential 15-s epochs for the pre- and post-vaccination periods (16 epochs). Respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) values were calculated on sequential 30-s epochs for the same pre- and post-vaccination periods (8 epochs). A total of 128 Bivariate Pearson’s correlations were used to test the relationship between infant pain behaviours and RSA during the pre- and post-vaccination periods.
Results: FLACC scores at baseline (r range = -.356 to -.597, p range = .001 to .045) and 1-minute (r = -.385, p = .024) and 2-minutes (r range = -.357 to -.526, p range = .001-.038) post-vaccination were consistently negatively correlated with infant RSA. FLACC scores at 3-minutes post-vaccination were not significantly related to infant RSA.
Conclusions: For the first time in the literature, correlation data are provided on infant behavioural and physiological response to vaccination pain at 12 months of age. This study provides preliminary evidence that synchronous physiological and behavioural indicators of distress are associated in the immediate post-vaccination context.
Acknowledgments/Disclosures: This research was funded by the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada (Discovery Grant # 504112). The authors have no conflicts
