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Coping skills training for children: effects on distress before, during, and after hospitalization for surgery
Insights
Presurgical interventions like anxiety reduction and coping skills significantly lowered children's fear and parental distress. Coping skills uniquely reduced children's maladaptive behaviors during hospitalization.
Area of Science:
- Pediatric Psychology
- Child Health Interventions
- Surgical Preparation
Background:
- Presurgical anxiety impacts children and parents.
- Effective preparatory interventions are crucial for pediatric surgical patients.
- Previous research highlights the need for tailored interventions.
Purpose of the Study:
- To compare the effectiveness of three presurgical interventions: information, anxiety reduction, and coping skills.
- To evaluate the impact of these interventions on children's fear and behavioral adaptation.
- To assess the effect on parental distress and behavior.
Main Methods:
- Randomly assigned 33 parent-child dyads to information, anxiety reduction, or coping skills groups.
- Interventions included a puppetry film, parental relaxation techniques, and child coping self-talk.
- Data collected via self-reports, observer ratings, and parental diaries.
Main Results:
- Both anxiety reduction and coping skills groups reduced children's fear and parental distress compared to the information group.
- The coping skills group showed fewer child maladaptive behaviors during hospitalization.
- Coping skills intervention also led to less problematic behavior in the preadmission and postdischarge periods.
Conclusions:
- Anxiety reduction and coping skills interventions are effective in mitigating presurgical distress in children and parents.
- Coping skills training offers additional benefits by reducing behavioral problems in children.
- These findings support the use of targeted psychological interventions for pediatric surgical preparation.
Abstract:
Thirty-three parent-child dyads (children's mean age = 7.2 years, SD = 1.2) were randomly assigned to information, anxiety reduction, or coping skills presurgical preparatory interventions. All groups received the "information" procedure that described typical hospitalization and surgery experiences via a puppetry film viewed 1 week prior to hospital admission. In the anxiety reduction group, parents also learned procedures (e.g., relaxation) to help them reduce their own distress. Parents in the coping skills group learned how to help their children use coping self-talk and related techniques. The coping skills intervention was expected to assist children most effectively, although the anxiety reduction procedure was also expected to improve adaptation relative to the information condition. These hypotheses were generally supported. Anxiety reduction and coping skills groups, compared to the information group, reduced children's self-reported fearfulness and parents' reported distress. Furthermore, only the coping skills group, compared to the information group, exhibited fewer maladaptive behaviors during hospitalization (ratings by observers) and less problematic behavior in the preadmission week and second postdischarge week (daily parental diaries). Theoretical explanations for these results are discussed in light of the similar findings obtained by Peterson and Shigetomi (1981).