The Effects of Medical Clowns in Children Undergoing Blood Tests

Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center

Status

Completed

Conditions

Anxiety

Pain

Treatments

Behavioral: clown

Study type

Interventional

Funder types

Other

Identifiers

NCT01396876

TASMC-11-SR-525-CTIL

Details and patient eligibility

About

The investigators hypothesized that the participation of therapeutic clowns in the pediatric emergency department procedure room would reduce anxiety, improve the level of cooperation children can provide and avoid some of the adverse effects.

Full description

Research has demonstrated that cognitive psychological techniques, including distraction, can increase pain tolerance. Humor can be an important intervention, able to reduce stress to both the child and the parent. In the last decade there has been a rapid growth in the presence of therapeutic clowns in hospital, particularly in pediatric settings. If therapeutic clowns are shown to positively affect any of the parameters being measured in this study, they should be included as aprt of the standard of care in the pediatric emergency setting.

Enrollment

60 patients

Sex

All

Ages

3 to 10 years old

Volunteers

No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

Children needing venous blood sampling or the insertion of an intravenous canula

Exclusion criteria

Children whose blood work or intravenous line must be accomplished rapidly for therapeutic reasons
Absence of a parent during the procedure
Abnormal development according to parents