Highlights
- •Anxiety is common among pediatric surgical patients and their parents.
- •In other populations, producing art has been shown to significantly reduce anxiety.
- •Parents who colored had a greater reduction in anxiety compared to parents who did not color.
- •Coloring can decrease anxiety among parents in a pediatric surgical waiting area.
Abstract
Anxiety is common among pediatric surgical patients and their parents. Numerous studies
have examined interventions to reduce pediatric patients' anxiety; however, less is
known about reducing parental anxiety. In other populations, producing art has been
shown to significantly reduce anxiety.
Purpose
This study aimed to determine whether parents' anxiety decreased after coloring while
their child is in surgery.
Design and Methods
A block randomized controlled trial was conducted with a convenience sample of 106
parents of children who were having a scheduled surgery. Each day of data collection
was randomized where all parents enrolled that day would either color a pre-drawn
art template for 30 min or would simply wait in the waiting room for 30 min. The primary outcome measure was anxiety, measured by the 6-item short form of
the Spielberger State Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI).
Results
Parents' average anxiety score decreased from the initial measurement to the measurement
30 min later in both the control group and the intervention group. The reduction in anxiety
was significantly greater for those parents who participated in coloring during their
wait (p < 0.0001).
Conclusions
Coloring is a creative, simple, low cost, and effective activity to reduce anxiety
among parents in a pediatric surgical waiting area.
Practice Implications
Providing coloring materials and information about the benefits of coloring in pediatric
surgery waiting areas is an easy to implement intervention to reduce parental anxiety.
Keywords
To read this article in full you will need to make a payment
Purchase one-time access:
Academic & Personal: 24 hour online accessCorporate R&D Professionals: 24 hour online accessOne-time access price info
- For academic or personal research use, select 'Academic and Personal'
- For corporate R&D use, select 'Corporate R&D Professionals'
Subscribe:
Subscribe to Journal of Pediatric Nursing: Nursing Care of Children and FamiliesAlready a print subscriber? Claim online access
Already an online subscriber? Sign in
Register: Create an account
Institutional Access: Sign in to ScienceDirect
References
- Can coloring mandalas reduce anxiety? A pilot study.Art Therapy: Journal of the American Art Therapy Association. 2005; 22: 81-85
- A psychological preoperative program: Effects on anxiety and cooperative behaviors.Pediatric Anesthesia. 2013; 23: 139-143
- Postoperative pain in children: Association between anxiety sensitivity, pain catastrophizing, and female caregivers' responses to children's pain.The Journal of Pain. 2014; 15: 157-168
- Perioperative anxiety in children.Pediatric Anesthesia. 2010; 20: 318-322
- Preoperative anxiety in children: Predictors and outcomes.Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine. 1996; 150: 1238-1245
- Anesthesia induction using video glasses as a distraction tool for the management of preoperative anxiety in children.Anesthesia & Analgesia. 2013; 117: 1373-1379
- Cartoon distraction alleviates anxiety in children during induction of anesthesia.Anesthesia & Analgesia. 2012; 115: 1168-1173
- Paediatric day surgery: Impact on Hong Kong Chinese children and their parents.Journal of Clinical Nursing. 2003; 12: 882-887
- The development of a six-item short-form of the state scale of the Spielberger State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI).The British Journal of Clinical Psychology. 1992; 31: 301-306
- Streamed video clips to reduce anxiety in children during inhaled induction of anesthesia.Anesthesia & Analgesia. 2012; 115: 1162-1167
- Art-based occupation group reduces parent anxiety in the neonatal intensive care unit: A mixed-methods study.American Journal of Occupational Therapy. 2013; 67: 692-700
- The influence of art making on anxiety.Art Therapy: Journal of the American Art Therapy Association. 2012; 29: 68-73
- Psychological and autonomic effects of art making in college-aged students.Anxiety, Stress, and Coping. 2016; 29 (SAS (version 9.3), SAS Institute Inc., Cary NC): 561-569
- Tablet-based Interactive Distraction (TBID) vs oral midazolam to minimize perioperative anxiety in pediatric patients: A noninferiority randomized trial.Pediatric Anesthesia. 2014; 24: 1217-1223
- Can coloring mandalas reduce anxiety? A replication study.Art Therapy: Journal of the American Art Therapy Association. 2012; 29: 87-92
Article info
Publication history
Published online: February 10, 2018
Accepted:
February 1,
2018
Received in revised form:
January 30,
2018
Received:
October 3,
2017
Identification
Copyright
© 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
