Pain in the administration of drugs by intramuscular injection: ventrogluteal vs dorsogluteal

Abstract

Introduction. Intramuscular injection is a technique that causes pain and discomfort to people. In order to determine the least painful puncture site for the administration of intramuscular gluteal medications, a literature review was conducted in search of the highest quality evidence.

Method. The method used in this research was the Evidence-Based Nursing approach. The studies were collected from EBSCOhost, Google, Google Scholar, Cochrane Library and PubMed.  Filters of the selection criteria were applied to the papers and then were subjected to critical appraisal using the web platform FLC 2.0 leaving 2 articles remaining.  The Cochrane Collaboration's tool for assessing risk of bias was applied and afterwards the GRADE approach was used to determine the quality of the evidence and strength of recommendation.

Result. Papers included in the study responded partially the clinical question posed. The ventrogluteal IM injection site seems to be less painful than in the dorsogluteal site during the administration of analgesic anti-inflammatory drugs, the findings had a moderate level of evidence and strength of recommendation was 1B.

Conclusion. No strong evidence was found to prefer the ventrogluteal site rather than the dorsogluteal site in order to reduce pain associated with intramuscular administration of anti-inflammatory analgesics drugs. Although the first injection site has major advantages compared to the second