Virtual Reality and Peripheral Intravenous Catheter Insertion to Children (R3VP)

Peripheral intravenous catheter insertion is a difficult, painful and anxiety-provoking procedure for hospitalized children, with the possible memorization of pain being even more present for children with chronic pathologies.

Memorization of painful events plays an essential role in anticipating the next experience and can lead to long-term consequences. The child, whose cognitive faculties are gradually developing and whose emotions are very invasive, is particularly concerned by this repercussion.

Different techniques can be used to prevent pain during care (apart from "human" techniques such as comfort, distraction by voice, information on gesture... which are part of good practice).

The national drug safety agency recommends the use of the local anesthetic cream and/or an equimolar mixture of oxygen and nitrous oxide causing surface anesthesia and relaxation and amnesia of the gesture.

Immersion in virtual reality allows to saturate the child's sensorially (3D vision, hearing and kinesthetic proprioception) thus reducing nociceptive perceptions and anxiety. His attention is focused by the virtual animation proposed during this experience. There are many devices (glasses, masks...) as well as various programs more or less specific to care situations, some of them allow to interact with games.

There is no randomized study comparing the efficacy on pain, satisfaction and anxiety of peripheral intravenous catheter insertion with the three possible analgesia techniques: local anesthetic cream / local anesthetic cream and anesthetic and anxiolytic gas / local anesthetic cream and virtual reality mask, nor on the medico-economic impact respecting standard 6 on homogeneous pediatric age groups in clinical trials.

This is a randomized, open-label, three-armed, parallel, single-center therapeutic trial comparing an analgesic strategy using two authorized medical devices (conventional strategy) with a virtual reality mask distraction technique for intravenous catheter insertion in children aged 6 to 11 years old hospitalized in the day hospital of Clermont Ferrand University Hospital.

The control arm is the local anesthetic cream arm, the experimental arms are the local anesthetic cream + anesthetic and anxiolytic gas arm on the one hand and the local anesthetic cream + virtual reality mask type Oculus quest® with interactive program on the other hand.

After informing and obtaining the consent of the child and his parents, will be measured the pain/anxiety/salivary cortisol/heart rate of the child; anxiety of the parents. The nurse evaluates the venous capital of the child then times the time of care and collects (among other things) the number of operators required. Immediately after the treatment, and then 15 to 30 minutes after the insertion will be measured the pain/anxiety/heart rate of the child; anxiety of the parents. The salivary cortisol at 20 minutes after catheter insertion will reflect the stress felt by the child during the procedure. Finally, the satisfaction of the child, parents, nurses will be collected 30 minutes after the care.

After statistical analysis of these three arms, it will be possible to determine the value of the anesthetic and anxiolytic gas and the virtual reality mask to reduce the child's pain and anxiety during the intravenous catheter insertion.