Preparation for medical procedures is a common practice in pediatrics. It is intended to reduce the psychological reactions associated in particular among patients who will receive surgery. For over 20 years, COANIQUEM has developed an activity entitled Emotional Preparation for Treatments, that is intended to decrease anxiety among patients and their companions and perceived pain during their first treatment.
This paper is a summary of the evaluation conducted in order to examine how effective this activity is and propose potential changes to ithat need to be made. The goal of the study was defined based on a need felt from the nursing, occupational therapy and psychology teams who are not satisfied with the activity and do not know if it is being effective.
To reach this goal, 121 children and their companions participated in a quasi-experimental study, 44.6% participated in the PEC activity, becoming the experimental group and the remaining 55.4% was the control group.
The main results suggest that this activity is not effective in terms of decreasing pain or anxiety, however, by examining the results by the patient's age and sex some effects are found that provide information for future changes to the activity.
Keywords: preparation to medical tests, anxiety, pain |
