• Ayelet Rimon, Shelly Shalom, Ido Wolyniez, Alejandro Gruber, Anita Schachter-Davidov, and Miguel Glatstein.
• Pediatric Emergency Medicine, Dana-Dwek Children's Hospital, Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, affiliated with Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel.
• Isr Med Assoc J. 2016 Nov 1; 18 (11): 680-683.

BackgroundMedical clowns are increasingly used for diminishing pain and anxiety during painful procedures being performed on children in the hospital setting. Cortisol levels rise as a response to emotional distress.ObjectivesTo investigate whether medical clown-assisted interventions to reduce child's distress during venipuncture have an effect on cortisol levels.MethodsDuring a 1 year period, children requiring blood work or intravenous access in the pediatric emergency department were prospectively randomized to either the presence or absence of a medical clown during the procedure. The child's distress was evaluated using the Faces Pain Scale - revised (FPS-R) for the 4-7 year age group and the visual analog scales (VAS) for those aged 8-15 years. Serum cortisol levels were measured in blood samples obtained by venipuncture.ResultsFifty-three children aged 2-15 years were randomly assigned to the study group (with medical clown, n=29) or to the control group (without medical clown, n=24). Combined pain scores of the study group and control group were 2.2 and 7.5 respectively (P < 0.001). No difference in mean cortisol levels was found between the study group and the control group at all ages (16.4 µg/dl vs. 18.3 µg/dl, P = 0.65).ConclusionsIn this pilot study, medical clowns reduced the distress from venipuncture in children. No effect on cortisol levels was observed.

28 keywords...

hide…