• Hong Gu He, Lixia Zhu, Ho Cheung William Li, Wenru Wang, Katri Vehviläinen-Julkunen, and Sally Wai Chi Chan.
• Alice Lee Centre for Nursing Studies, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, Singapore.
• J Adv Nurs. 2014 Feb 1;70(2):431-42.

AimTo report a trial protocol to determine if a therapeutic play intervention leads to significant reduction in perioperative anxiety, negative emotional manifestations and postoperative pain of children undergoing inpatient elective surgery and in their parents' perioperative anxiety.BackgroundChildren undergoing surgery often experience anxiety, exhibit negative emotional manifestations pre-operatively and postoperative pain. Previous studies report that therapeutic play intervention has positive effects on anxiety reduction, while few studies have examined the effects of such intervention on children undergoing major elective surgery.DesignRandomized controlled trial with repeated measures is proposed.MethodsThis study will recruit 106 pairs of 6-14-year-old children undergoing elective surgery in a Singaporean public hospital and their parents (protocol approved in October 2011). Eligible participants will be randomly allocated to either a control group (receiving routine care) or an experimental group (receiving 1-hour therapeutic play intervention plus routine care). Outcome measures include children's anxiety, emotional manifestation and postoperative pain, their parents' anxiety and process evaluation. Data will be collected at baseline (3-7 days before the operation), on the day of surgery and around 24 hours after the surgery.DiscussionThis study will identify a clinically useful and potentially effective approach to prepare children for surgery by reducing anxiety of both children and their parents during the perioperative period. The reduction of anxiety may lead to reduction of postoperative pain, which will eventually improve the physical and psychological well-being of children. This study was funded by the National Medical Research Council in Singapore.© 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

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