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[Children hospitalized for surgery: a cognitive program for the prevention of behavioral disorders]
Insights
Behavioral disorders in hospitalized children are influenced by factors like play, social contact, and parental visits. A psychological intervention significantly reduced these disorders in children undergoing surgery.
Area of Science:
- Pediatric Psychology
- Child Psychiatry
- Behavioral Science
Context:
- Hospitalization presents unique challenges for children's behavioral health.
- Surgical wards require specific considerations for managing childhood behavioral disorders.
- Previous research established baseline findings in pediatric wards.
Purpose:
- To compare behavioral disorder conditions in children undergoing surgery with those in pediatric wards.
- To identify factors that inhibit or reinforce behavioral disorders in hospitalized children.
- To evaluate the effectiveness of a psychological intervention program.
Summary:
- Sixty children aged 3-6 undergoing surgery were studied, comparing findings with earlier pediatric ward data.
- Inhibiting factors include free play, peer contact, positive staff interactions, parental visits, and child's age/confidence.
- Reinforcing factors include prior hospitalizations, trauma, and maternal anxiety.
Impact:
- A cognitive-behavioral intervention significantly reduced behavioral disorders during hospitalization and post-discharge.
- Findings inform strategies to mitigate psychological distress in pediatric surgical patients.
- The study highlights the importance of environmental and psychological support for hospitalized children.
Abstract:
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.