Developmental medicine and child neurology
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Dev Med Child Neurol · Feb 2001
Impact of the therapist-child dyad on children's pain and coping during medical procedures.
This study examined the effects of physical therapists' behaviors on the levels of distress and coping of 32 children (19 males, 11 females; age range 2.6 to 9.1 years) during a painful medical procedure. This is the second study to assess children throughout rehabilitation following selective posterior rhizotomy and the first to assess the impact of physical therapists' behaviors. ⋯ Criticism, reassurance, checking child's status, praise, and empathic statements by therapists explained 65% of the variance in children's distress. Older children and children with higher IQ scores exhibited more coping behaviors.