Survey the characteristics of two methods of non-pharmacological cryotherapy on perineal pain level due to episiotomy

Background and Objective: Cryotherapy is the simplest and oldest therapeutic method in treatment of damaged soft tissue. The aim of this study was to assess the efficiency of two methods of cryotherapy, the ice pack and cooling gel pad on perineal pain due to episiotomy. Materials and Method: This randomized controlled trial study was conducted on 81 healthy primiparous women with normal vaginal delivery and episiotomy in Ommul- Banin hospital of Mashhad in 2006. They were allocated to two groups of cryotherapy (41 in cooling gel pad group and 40 in ice pack group). The level of perineal pain, the coldness of cooling devices were evaluated during the first 10 minutes and also, duration of analgesia effect at 1, 2, 5, 10 days after intervention. The questionnaire was used in the first measurement. The correlation between each question measured twice, and the least agreement was r=0.60. The data were analyzed with SPSS 16, Chi square and fisher’s exact test. Results: There was a statistically significant difference between the two groups (cooling gel pad, ice pack) considering to the pain level on second day (P=0.001), fifth day (P=0.02), tenth day (P=0.005), during the use of cooling device. But there was no significant difference between the two groups regard to coldness in the first 10 minutes and duration of analgesia effect of cooling device in first, second, fifth and tenth day. Conclusion: In terms of the properties of cooling device such as reduction the need of taking of oral analgesia drug and satisfaction of patients, so cooling gel pad is better than ice pack for reducing episiotomy pain.