Pulling Off the Band-Aid – Quickly or Slowly?

Think back to the time when you were young, and had to have a band-air removed.  Your mother probably asked you if she should pull it off quickly or slowly.  She might even have told you: ”a quick jerk and it’ll be all over”, and then se pulled it off in a single quick motion.  And you probably wondered if a slower process might have been less painful.  Now Australian researchers from James Cook University have conducted a randomized study to find out which method is best, and reported their findings in the Journal of Pain. 

The 65 participants were 2^nd and 3^rd year medical students.  Medium-sized band aids were applied and removed using slow and fast techniques, three to each subject.  Pain was estimated using an 11-point verbal numeric pain scale.

The average pain score for fast band-aid removal was 0.92 and for slow removal it was 1.58.  The difference between the methods was statistically significant, i.e. it couldn’t have occurred by chance alone.  So the study showed that fast band aid removal caused less pain than slow removal – just like mother told you.  But now it’s been shown ‘scientifically’, so there should be no argument . . .