Game on, kids’ pre-operative anxiety off

CHANDIGARH: An incentivebased game therapy reduces pre-operative anxiety in children between 4 and 8 years of age undergoing inhalational anaesthesia induction for a surgery, according to a research conducted last year at PGI and published recently.
The study, “Incentive-Based Gamefor Allaying Preoperative Anxiety in Children:AProspective, Randomized Trial,” by authors Bijay Chaurasia, Divya Jain, Swati Mehta, Komal Gandhi, and Preethy J Mathew, PGI, has been published in an international journal, “Anesthesia & Analgesia”.

After its successful trial, the department of anaesthesia has started using the method in some of the cases.

The study was conducted as anaesthetic induction can be one of the most stressful experiences for a child during the preoperative period, with almost 50% of the children showing significant anxiety, as documented in medical literature.

The study was designed for low resource country setting like India as there have been studies in high-resource countries, where newer information technology devices like iPods, computers, video games, or tablets easily available.

“We devised a low-cost, incentive-based game using the facemask and the anaesthesia circuit to reduce pre-operative anxiety in children between 4 and 8 years of age. We hypothesized that active involvement in the game would help distract children and their parents, while the use of anaesthesia tools would help in familiarization to the anaesthesia induction procedure, reducing preoperative anxiety,” mentioned the study. Eighty children were included in the study. Forty participated in the incentive-based game. However, children in boththe groupswereinducedin the presence of parents.

Whatwasthe game?“Wedid not have any game. In fact, the anaesthesia mask was made as a game. The children were taught how to blow through the mask to inflate the balloon. The child who was able to blow through the mask for the longest period counting 1, 2, 3, 4… was declared the winner. The children were appraised that the air could be foul smelling butdespitethatthey wouldhave toblowintothe mask andinflate the balloon,” said Dr Divya.