Use of Incentives for Stressful Medical Procedures

Jennifer Staab, MS, CCLS

Status: Enrolling

Conditions: Healthy

Treatments: Behavioral: Child life standard of care + incentive provided unconditionally.; Behavioral: Child life standard of care + incentives provided with conditional agreement.; Behavioral: Child life standard of care

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT06254898

23-0337

Details and patient eligibility

About

The goal of this clinical trial is to learn about the use of incentives in pediatric patients requiring medical procedures. The main questions it aims to answer are: Are incentives effective at reducing pediatric anxiety for medical procedures? What is the best way to use incentives with pediatric populations requiring medical procedures? Participants will be provided support in preparation for their procedure and during the procedure by a child life specialist and might receive an incentive prize after their procedure. Participants distress levels during the procedure will be observed and they will be asked to rate their anxiety on a visual analog scale.

Researchers will compare the anxiety of those who did or did not receive an incentive after their procedure to see if incentives reduced procedural anxiety.

Full description

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the impact incentives have on the distress and cooperation of children undergoing stressful medical procedures. The primary aim is to determine if offering an incentive reduces procedural distress for children undergoing stressful medical procedures. Secondly, if an incentive is offered does the process for offering the incentive (conditional or unconditional) to the patient impact the procedural distress of the patient. Patient anxiety and visit satisfaction will be looked at as secondary measures.

Enrollment: 187 estimated patients

Sex: All

Ages: 5 to 17 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Patients and parent of patients aged 6-100 years who are undergoing a medical procedure
• Patients and parent of patients who are prepared and supported by a certified child life specialist.

Exclusion criteria

• Cognitive impairment that negates the use of the outcome tools
• Children younger than 6 years old, or older than 17 years old.

Trial design

Primary purpose: Supportive Care

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Single Blind

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187 participants in 3 patient groups

Child life standard of care

Active Comparator group

Description:

Child life standard of care

Treatment:

Behavioral: Child life standard of care

Child life standard of care + incentives provided with conditional agreement.

Experimental group

Description:

Child life standard of care + incentives provided with conditional agreement.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Child life standard of care + incentives provided with conditional agreement.

Child life standard of care + incentive provided unconditionally.

Experimental group

Description:

Child life standard of care + incentive provided unconditionally.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Child life standard of care + incentive provided unconditionally.