Department of Developmental and Educational Psychology, Faculty of Psychology, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria.
Zdravotni Klaun, Prague, Czechia.
Front Public Health. 2021 Apr 20;9:653884. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2021.653884. eCollection 2021.
In the present study we examined the positive effects of a healthcare clown intervention on children undergoing surgeries, and the role parent-child relationships may play in their effectiveness. Children between 5 and 12 years, who were scheduled to undergo elective surgical procedures in a large university hospital, were randomly assigned to an intervention group (IG; = 35) that was visited by a healthcare clown, and a control group (CG; = 27) that received treatment as usual (i.e., company of parents before the surgery). Children in both groups were videotaped and the videos were later used to rate their activity, arousal, emotional expressivity, and vocalizations. Additionally, children and parents rated their mood and perceived quality of life at several points during the procedure, and parents reported their perceptions of the relationship with their children. Results showed that children in the IG showed more positive emotions and vocalizations than children in the CG. Parents of children in the IG also reported more positive mood than parents of children in the CG. In contrast, children in the CG reported higher quality of life than children in the IG. Importantly, analyses showed considerable effects of the parent-child relationship on all outcome measures. Results of the present study demonstrate that a healthcare clown intervention had some positive effects on behaviors and mood of hospitalized children and their parents. Importantly, our findings also suggest that we need to consider the pre-existing "relationship microcosmos" that the clowns enter when assessing their effectiveness in the hospital.
在本研究中，我们考察了医疗小丑干预对接受手术的儿童的积极影响，以及亲子关系在其有效性中可能发挥的作用。我们将在一家大型大学医院接受择期手术的 5 至 12 岁儿童随机分配到干预组（IG；n=35）和对照组（CG；n=27）。IG 组接受医疗小丑的访问，CG 组接受常规治疗（即手术前父母陪伴）。对两组儿童进行录像，之后使用录像评估他们的活动、觉醒度、情感表达和发声。此外，在手术过程中的几个时间点，儿童和家长都对他们的情绪和感知生活质量进行了评分，家长还报告了他们对与孩子关系的看法。结果表明，IG 组儿童比 CG 组儿童表现出更多的积极情绪和发声。IG 组儿童的家长也比 CG 组儿童的家长报告有更积极的情绪。相比之下，CG 组儿童报告的生活质量比 IG 组儿童更高。重要的是，分析显示亲子关系对所有结果测量都有相当大的影响。本研究结果表明，医疗小丑干预对住院儿童及其家长的行为和情绪有一些积极影响。重要的是，我们的发现还表明，在评估小丑在医院的有效性时，我们需要考虑他们进入的预先存在的“关系微观世界”。
