The impact of medical clowns exposure over postoperative pain and anxiety in children and caregivers: An Israeli experience

• Main Authors: Nitza Newman, Slava Kogan, Moshe Stavsky, Shay Pintov, Yotam Lior
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2019-09-01
• Series: Pediatric Reports
• Subjects: pain reduction; Hernia; clown-doctors; cortisol; pediatric surgery
• Online Access: https://www.pagepress.org/journals/index.php/pr/article/view/8165

While postoperative pain management was shown to reduce unwanted physiological and emotional outcomes, pediatric postoperative pain management remains suboptimal. Medical-clowns were shown to be beneficial in many medical contexts including reduction of stress, anxiety and pain. This study was set to assess the effectiveness of medical-clowns on pediatric postoperative pain reduction. Children age 4 or above, planned for elective hernia repair surgery were recruited. Children were randomly divided to a control or medicalclown escorted groups. Demographical and clinical data were collected using questionnaires and electronic sheets. Children escorted by clowns reported lower levels of pain upon admittance, discharge and 12-hours post-surgery. Statistically significant reduction of parental distress and significantly higher serum cortisol levels were observed in the clown-therapy group. Although small, our study supports the possibility that preoperative medical-clown therapy might be a cheap, safe and yet beneficial method for postoperative pain reduction.