Research confirms mothers were right all along - removing a Band-Aid is less painful when it is ripped off quickly.

A study at Queensland's James Cook University used 65 medical students who removed Band-Aids either quickly or slowly, and ranked their pain reaction from zero to 10.

Quick removal returned a pain score of 0.92 in comparison with 1.58 for those who chose the slow approach.

Researcher Dr Carl O'Kane says the research found the cause of pain to be more of a psychological issue.

"It's fascinating that if you had a preconception that slow was going to be more painful in fact it was, so it also suggests that pain is not just what you perceive but what you think you will perceive when you get the painful stimulus," he said.

"So there's a lot of cultural and psychological factors there as well."