Giving Toys to Children Reduces Their Anxiety About Receiving Premedication for Surgery

Abstract

Children have increased anxiety during the preoperative period. The administration of oral premedication to children is often met with apprehension, reluctance, or refusal. We sought to determine whether giving a small toy to the children would decrease the anxiety associated with taking oral premedication. This was a prospective study involving 100 children 3-6 yr of age randomized into two equal groups. The anxiety of each child was assessed using the Modified Yale Preoperative Anxiety Scale. The results showed significantly less anxiety in children who received a toy before oral administration of midazolam.

Providing preoperative information for children undergoing surgery: a randomized study testing different types of educational material to reduce children's preoperative worries

“…A wide variety of approaches have been proposed to minimize the potential negative effects of surgery and hospitalization, in particular the use of toys and other entertainment materials [12,[79][80][81], including music [82,83], humor [84], magic [85], hospital clowns [20,86], guided visits to the hospital and operating room [87] and educational preoperative programs [11,66,73,88]. The literature also recommends that preoperative instruments should be brief, portable, inexpensive, and easy to administer [89].…”

A influência da atividade lúdica sobre a ansiedade da criança durante o período pré-operatório no centro cirúrgico ambulatorial

“…3,8,10,14,18 The first models of specific programs for children that would undergo surgery in the hospital were developed in the 1970s. 4 In these models, children were offered an overview of the anesthesia and surgery by means of videos or puppet theater.…”

“…After the present research project was approved by This instrument is validated to measure the anxiety of children during the preoperative period and it has been used in several studies to measure the level of preoperative anxiety and its relation with interventions using toys, 3 videogames, 8 presence of clowns, 10 playing doctor, and movies. 4 However, we could not find any Brazilian studies with the same objective as the present study.…”

“…1 Studies suggest that during the preoperative period anxiety is characterized by feelings of tension, restlessness, anxiety, and psychological stress. 2,3 It seems to be present in most patients undergoing pediatric surgical procedures, and it may be expressed by a behavior showing fear, trembling, panic, cry, or restlessness. 2,4,5 The anxiety caused by the hospital environment and surgical procedure may be harmful during the preoperative period because it might affect cognitive, social, and affective development, in addition to increasing negative behaviors during the child's postoperative period.…”

Psycho-educational preparation of children for anaesthesia: A review of intervention methods

“…Golden, Pagala [53] found that giving a toy before the anaesthesia induction is an easy, safe and economical way of reducing CPA and may reduce the dose of midazolam necessary to decrease anxiety. Similar results were reported by Patel, Schieble [54] who investigated the use of an hand-held videogame in the holding area and by Lee, Lee [55] who reported that children who watched animated cartoons in the waiting areas had significantly lower anxiety scores than those in the control group.…”