The Influence of Medical Clowns on the Performance of Pulmonary Function Tests Among Preschooler Children (clowns)

Hillel Yaffe Medical Center

Status: Unknown

Conditions: Asthma; Pneumonia

Treatments: Behavioral: medical clown

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT02708225

0026-15

Details and patient eligibility

About

Medical clowns are known to assist in relaxing children and allowing better cooperation during performance of medical procedures.

The ability of medical clowns to improve the motivation of children to perform active tasks was never examined to date.

The investigators would like to examine the influence of the clowns' presence on the performance of pulmonary function test.

Full description

The investigators would like to evaluate the performance of pulmonary function tests among preschool children aged 3-6 years.

Overall 200 children will participate.

The children will perform pulmonary function test without a clown present.

About an hour later half of them will perform the exam again with a medical clown assistance and the second half will repeat the examination without a clown present the differences between the performance will be evaluated.

Enrollment: 200 estimated patients

Sex: All

Ages: 3 to 6 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• children visiting the pediatric pulmonology clinic
• parents signed informed consent

Exclusion criteria

• medical or neurological diseases not allowing performance of pulmonary function tests
• parents refusal

Trial design

Primary purpose: Health Services Research

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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200 participants in 2 patient groups

interventional - with a medical clown

Experimental group

Description:

will perform pulmonary function test without the presence of a clown and an hour later will re-do the test with a medical clown present

Treatment:

Behavioral: medical clown

non interventional

No Intervention group

Description:

will perform pulmonary function test without the presence of a clown and an hour later will re-do the test without a medical clown present