Comparison of entonox and transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) in labor pain: a randomized clinical trial study

Abstract

Aim The aim of performing this study was comparison of Entonox and transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) in labor pain in Zanjan city, Iran. Materials and methods This clinical trial study was conducted on 120 pregnant women in Zanjan-Iran, 2016. The patients were randomly divided (by method of 1:1:1) into three groups (each group 40 patients): First group was TENS group; the second group was Entonox group and control group were choose from the patients that had a physiological delivery. They did not want to use analgesia. All the analyses were done using SPSS (version 23). Results Before intervention the pain severity between three group was relatively same (p = .78). After intervention, pain score was significantly higher in control group compared to other two groups (p = .005), but the differences between mean Apgar score between three groups was not significant (p = .59). Also, both Entonox and TENS had significantly lower pain compared control group (p = .005), but there was no significant difference between Entonox and TENS in regard of pain score (p = .997) Conclusions Our findings reported that two groups of Entonox and TENS had similar effect on pain relief and decreased significantly pain scores. Therefore, TENS methods as a non-drug pain relief method can propose to women for relief of labor pain.