The Effect of Educational Animation on Anxiety and Fear in Children With Tympanostomy Tube Placement in Pediatric Surgery: A Randomized Controlled Trial

When a child becomes ill and undergoes surgery, it can be an event that increases anxiety and fear for both the child and the parents. Parents may experience significant decision conflicts when making decisions about their child's elective surgical treatment, such as ear tube surgery. Children encounter many situations in the hospital that cause anxiety and fear. Especially if there is a surgical intervention plan in the treatment plan of the disease, psychological problems may arise in the child and family members. During the preoperative period, children can be quite stressed. Anxiety-inducing conditions include feeling restless due to the operation, fear of loneliness, feeling of foreignness, fear of pain after surgery, concern about disruption of the integrity of the body and frequent use of medical terms. Reducing anxiety before surgery has positive results in the recovery of the sick child and the parent after surgery. Methods such as preanesthetic drugs, distractions, the presence of the parent with the patient before anesthesia, preoperative training and psychological preparation of both the child and the family for surgery are used to reduce preoperative anxiety.

In the study examining the content of social media posts about ear tubes in children on popular social media platforms Instagram and Facebook, it was determined that most of the posts were made by parents/caregivers in the perioperative period and the rate of educational posts was low. With the increasing importance of patient/family-centered participation in the decision-making process in healthcare services, standardizing the content and increasing the usability of educational materials for surgical procedures commonly performed in children such as ear tube placement should be a priority. Since there are no standardized guidelines on how to write online patient education materials, online patient education materials vary in quality and readability.

This study may provide important information about the ear tube surgery procedure by helping children to focus their attention on positive things rather than stressful events with video and musical interventions, which are both economical and easy to use. To the best of our knowledge, there is no study in the literature examining the effect of video screening on anxiety and fear in children undergoing ear tube surgery. Therefore, this randomized controlled trial was planned to determine the effect of educational video screening on anxiety and fear in children.

Inclusion criteria

• Being between 6-10 years old
• Having ear tube surgery
• Signing the informed consent form by the patient's legal guardian

Exclusion criteria

• Previous surgical operation of the child
• The child has had a cleft palate or lip operation before
• Conditions that may prevent communication with parents (e.g. language problem)