Usefulness of a virtual reality educational program for reducing preoperative anxiety in children: A randomised, single-centre clinical trial.
Eur J Anaesthesiol
; 41(9): 657-667, 2024 Sep 01.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-38916221
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND:
Preoperative anxiety (PA) is common in children and has detrimental effects on surgical outcome. Strategies based on virtual reality (VR) have recently been introduced to address this problem.OBJECTIVE:
This study evaluated the usefulness of a virtual reality educational program (VREP) for reducing preoperative anxiety in elective low-complexity paediatric surgery.DESIGN:
Randomised clinical trial.SETTING:
Single tertiary centre in Barcelona, Spain. Between January 2019 and June 2022. PATIENTS Children aged 3-13âyears of age, American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) I-II, scheduled for elective low-complexity surgery were enrolled in the study. INTERVENTION Children were randomised into a control group (received oral/written information about the anaesthetic-surgical process, and patients and their parents remained in a playroom waiting for the surgery) or VREP (viewed a VR-based educational video on the surgical process, 7-10âdays prior to surgery) using the MATLAB application. MAIN OUTCOMEMEASURE:
PA using the modified Yale Preoperative Anxiety Scale (mYPAS) during separation from parents.RESULTS:
In total, 241 children aged 3-12âyears of age were studied (120 patients with VREP and 121 controls). Randomisation eliminated the differences between the groups, except for a greater male presence in the VREP group (83.3% vs. 71.1%; P â=â0.023). The mYPAS yielded was lower in the VREP group (29.2% vs. 83.5%; P â<â0.001). Sex did not influence VREP-mediated decrease in PA ( P â<â0.001). In turn, VREP patients were more cooperative (Induction Compliance Checklist [ICC] score 0 points vs. 2 points; P â<â0.001) during anaesthesia induction, presented less delirium (Pediatric Anesthesia Emergence Delirium [PAED] score 1 point vs. 3 points; P â=â0.001) on leaving the recovery room, and experienced less pain upon arrival in the hospital ward (Wong-Baker Faces Pain Rating Scale 0-points vs. 1 point; P â<â0.001).CONCLUSIONS:
The VREP-based prevention strategy reduced preoperative anxiety in children undergoing elective low-complexity surgery. TRIAL REGISTRATION NCT03578393.
Full text:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Anxiety
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Preoperative Care
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Patient Education as Topic
/
Virtual Reality
Limits:
Adolescent
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Child
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Child, preschool
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Female
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Humans
/
Male
Country/Region as subject:
Europa
Language:
En
Journal:
Eur J Anaesthesiol
Journal subject:
ANESTESIOLOGIA
Year:
2024
Document type:
Article
Country of publication:
Reino Unido