Introduction: Recently increasing attention has been paid to the routine childhood immunization. Immunization is considered as one of the most significant medical achievement. During immunization lack of adequate pain management exposes children to unnecessary suffering from long term consequences, such as fear of needles. To reduce vaccine injection pain numerous pain management are available. However, Distraction is useful for children of all ages undergoing procedural pain. Distraction is one of the non-pharmacological method which is used for diverting attention from noxious stimulus and passively redirecting the attention by the subject in the performance of diversion technique. And it is considered as powerful method of pain management in children, in the first seven years of life because it does not require advanced cognitive skills.

The aim of the present study was to assess the effectiveness of distraction technique upon pain among children (6 month to 24 month) receiving vaccination at selected hospital at Mangaluru.

Objectives of the study: To assess the level of pain among children receiving immunization in experimental group and control group as measured by FLACC behavioral pain assessment. To Evaluate the effectiveness of distraction technique among children receiving immunization in experimental group. To find the Association in the level of pain among children receiving immunization in experimental group and control group and their selected baseline variables.

Method: Quasi-experimental research (post-test-only control group) design was used for this study. The sample was drawn through purposive sampling technique and comprised of 60 children undergoing immunization (30 in experimental and 30 in control group) in a selected Hospital in Mangalore. Data was collected using FLACC Behavioral assessment scale.

Result: The mean score of behavior response to pain of experimental group was 5.17± 1.74. The mean score of behavior response to pain of control group was 9.57± 0.57.

Majority of children in experimental group (66.7%) having moderate behavioral response to pain, only 20.0% were having severe response to pain and whereas in control group (100%) all the children experienced severe behavioral response to pain during immunization. The mean score of control group (9.57± 0.57) is greater than the experimental group (5.17± 1.74).

The unpaired t test showed that there was significant difference between the level of behavioral response to pain among children in experimental group and control group (t58=2.002) at 0.05 level of significance.

There was no significant association between levels of pain among children in experimental group and control group with their selected demographic variables (p>0.05)