[Children hospitalized for surgery: a cognitive program for the prevention of behavioral disorders].

To compare the conditions of behavioral disorders of hospitalized children in pediatric and surgical wards an investigation was made on 60 children aged 3 to 6 years who had to undergo surgery. The results were compared with earlier findings on children hospitalized in pediatric wards (Wanschura and Löschenkohl 1979, Schandl and Löschenkohl 1980). Most of the conditions of behavioral disorders could be confirmed. Conditions which inhibit behavioral disorders are: opportunity to play freely, contact to other children, positive contact to medical staff, play organized by parents who visited their children, higher frequency of visits, higher age of the child, active searching for contact by the child, confidence in the medical staff. Conditions which reinforce behavioral disorders are: Higher frequency of earlier hospitalizations, previous psychic traumas, anxiety of the mother related to illness. A psychological intervention program based on a cognitive theory of anxiety combined with the transfer of positive affects by a photographed model who had shown no fear in different situations of hospitalization and surgery significantly reduced behavioral disorders of hospitalized children in the hospital and after release from the hospital in the home environment.