Effect of Cold Application on Pain and Bruising in Patients WithSubcutaneous Injection of Low-Molecular-Weight Heparin: AMeta-Analysis

摘要

To evaluate the effect of cold application on pain and bruising after thesubcutaneous injection of low-molecular-weight heparin, 8 electronic databaseswere searched for randomized controlled trials and quasiexperimental studiesfrom the inception of the databases to June 2019. Review Manager 5.3 softwarewas used for the heterogeneity test and meta-analysis. A total of 8 studiesincluding 694 participants were analyzed. The cold application group assessedwith the Verbal Descriptor Scale pain assessment tool showed significantreductions in pain intensity immediately after injection. Compared to thecontrol group, the cold application group showed a reduction in the occurrenceof bruises at 12 hours, 24 hours, and 48 hours after injection. There was nosignificant difference in the area of bruising in the cold application group at48 hours after injection, but the area of bruising at 72 hours after injectionwas significantly reduced. These results show that cold application can reducethe incidence of pain and bruising after subcutaneous injection oflow-molecular-weight heparin and reduce the area of bruising 72 hours afterinjection. Additional studies with larger sample sizes are needed to confirmthese findings.