The fear of needles: A systematic review and meta-analysis
McLenon & Rogers
The finding, in our words
The reference systematic review and meta-analysis of needle-fear prevalence across children and adults: the quantified basis for why a proportion of any population will not present for a venous draw.
A paraphrase to the Library’s standard, never the abstract. The source is one link away and is always the authority.
This review establishes that microsampling across blood, saliva, urine and stool matrices offers validated workflows and regulatory recognition for human biomonitoring comparable to conventional methods. It finds that these decentralised approaches enhance participant acceptability and enable screening in remote or low-resource settings.
The Egoo Phe system showed strong concordance with dried blood spot testing across 100 paired samples, with median phenylalanine 274 versus 270 μmol/L and readings a mean 4.6% higher, and high caregiver acceptance; the small sample size limits generalisability and further validation in larger cohorts is required.
Dried blood spot sampling matched venous serum performance for islet autoantibody detection and was considered minimally invasive and convenient by parents and stakeholders, supporting its use for decentralised screening in home or community settings.
Whole-genome sequencing of dried blood spots from 1,000 newborns identified 16 infants with high-chance results, most missed by standard screening. The 13-day turnaround and high parental acceptability show a feasible, scalable model for decentralised genomic screening.
In 91 children and adults, capillary C-peptide taken with the TAP device matched venous sampling with 100% sensitivity and specificity for a clinically relevant level, 200 pmol/L or above, with r = 0.996. 63% preferred it to a needle against 7% who preferred the needle, and same-day bruising was 5.5% versus 34.8% after a venous draw.