The investigation of effects of watching animation education film in the pre-operative period on fear and post-operative pain in children

The overall aim of this study is to investigate the effects of watching animation film for education in the pre-operative period on fear and post-operative pain in children who had surgery. This study was conducted between July 1, 2017, and September 30, 2018, at the Pediatric Surgery Clinic of Ege University Medical Faculty Hospital. The study was a prospective randomized controlled trial. The current study includes data from 132 children who were chosen doing block randomization. "Child and Family Identification Data Form", "Child Fear Scale" and "Wong-Baker Faces Scale" was used to data collection. The patients were divided randomly into three groups as "Animation Education Film Group", " Documentary Film Group" and "Control Group". Animation Education Film and Documentary Film was screened using Virtual Reality (VR). The data were collected by the researcher in the pre-operative period. The pre-operative fear of the child was evaluated by the child and the parent, and the post-operative pain of the child was evaluated by the child, parent, and nurse using scales. In this study; there was a decrease in the mean fear score in the "Animation Education Film" and "Documentary Film" groups for both child and parent assessment. In the analysis, a statistically significant difference was found between "Animation Education Film Group", "Documentary Film Group" and "Control Group". It was found this difference was caused by Animation Education Film Group (p <0.001). According to the postoperative pain score, there was a decrease in the mean pain score in "Animation Education Film Group" and "Documentary Film" groups for both child and parent assessment. In the analysis, a statistically significant difference was found between "Animation Education Film Group", "Documentary Film Group" and "Control Group". It was found that this difference was caused by Animation Education Film Group (p <0.001). The animation education film, which describes the preparation of surgery in children, was found to be an effective method to reduce pre-operative fear and post-operative pain. It is recommended to use as a non-pharmacological method to reduce fear and pain during the pre-operative preparation period in children. Keywords; pediatric surgery; pre-operative preparation; animation; fear; pain.