[A comparison on the degree of pain according to methods of blood sugar test between DM patients and healthy group].
OBJECTIVE
This study attempts to compare the degree of pain when different methods of blood sugar test are used between a DM patient group and a healthy group.


METHODS
A sample is composed of 56 DM patients and 57 their family who are admitted in a ward of C university hospital in Gwangju. Data were collected from July, 2001 to December, 2001. The blood sugar tests are administered four different ways. The degree of pain is measured twice with a visual analog scale in a week interval.


RESULTS
The differences in the degree of pain according to methods of blood sugar test were not found between the DM patient group and the healthy group in both measures. The only use of a 27G needle method was shown to cause highest level of pain in comparison with the rest of methods in the first measure of the DM patient group and in both the measures of the healthy group.


CONCLUSIONS
The study results indicate that the method using lanceter is more recommendable than method of using a 27G needle. Furthermore, the ice therapy and EMLA cream is likely to be more effective on the pain relief in the healthy group than the DM patient group.
Department of Nursing, Mokpo Catholic University, Korea. choijy@mcu.ac.kr
Ja-Yun
JY
Choi