Which site is more painful in intramuscular injections? The dorsogluteal site or the ventrogluteal site? A case study from Turkey

Abstract

The aim of the study was to examine the effect on pain of medication administered by intramuscular injection to the dorsogluteal and ventrogluteal sites, and to investigate gender and body mass index differences in pain perception between the sites. This clinical trial was performed on 70 adult patients receiving at least two doses of diclofenac sodium intramuscularly in a state hospital in Bursa, Turkey. Two injections were administered to each patient with an interval of 24 hours by the same researcher using two injection sites. The injection sites were randomly allocated. After each injection, the pain felt by patients during the injection was immediately assessed using a visual analog scale by another researcher who had no prior knowledge of which the injection site. Numerical and percentage distribution of sociodemographic data on patients’ identification characteristics were calculated. The Wilcoxon signed rank test was used to explore determine the statistical differences in perceived pain intensity between the two injection sites. Differences in the mean pain intensity at the dorsogluteal and ventrogluteal sites by BMI and gender were analysed using the paired t test. The average pain score of patients after injections to the ventrogluteal site was 1.24±1.18, while that for injections to the dorsogluteal site was 1.89±1.49. The difference in average pain scores from injections administered to the two different sites was found to be statistically significant (p<0.05). The results supported the hypothesis that intramuscular injections of diclofenac sodium administered to the ventrogluteal site would feel less painful than those administered to the dorsogluteal site.