The use of stuffed, body-outline dolls with hospitalized children and adolescents.

The process of creating and personalizing a blank, stuffed, body-outline doll can provide children with a pleasurable, expressive activity that can be used by staff to facilitate effective coping. Observation of this process can provide staff with important assessment information. The dolls' permeability and flexibility make them ideal for use in preparation interactions and for promoting postprocedural health care play. The degree to which it is possible to individualized the dolls appears to enhance their value to the patients who create them. Examples of ways health care professionals can most effectively utilize the dolls are detailed.