The effects of computer games on pain score, anxi̇ety level and duration of procedure in children undergoing intraarticular injection

Invasive procedures encountered in the hospital setting are a source of pain and anxiety for children. This study was conducted as an experimental randomized controlled trial to evaluate the effects of computer games on pain, anxiety level and duration of the procedure during intraarticular injection. Permissions from ethics committee, institution and child / family wereobtained. The population included the children who were treated between September 2016 and October 2017 at Cerrahpaşa Medical Faculty Hospital in the Department of Pediatric Rheumatology while the sample included 41 children (Experimental group: 20;Control group: 21) who matched the sample selection criteria.Socio-Demographic Data Form, Application Registration Form, Face Pain Scale- Revised (FPS-R), State Anxiety Inventory for Children (SAIC), digital stopwatch, computer game and tablet were utilized as the data collection tools. The childred on the experimental group were exposed to a computer game on the tablet during intraarticular injection. Routine procedures were applied to the control group. The pre - post pain and anxiety scores were measured before and after the treatment. The procedure time was recorded. The gathered data were analyzed statistaclly by the statistcall analysis tool, SPSS 22.0 software. The results revealed that the groups were statistically signfiicanlty similar in terms of descriptive properties (p>0.05). The results also indicated that computer games significantly decreased the average pain(p = 0.000) and enxiety (p = 0.001)scores, as well as shortened duration of the procedure (p = 0.007) in the experimental group. The application of drawing attentiong to another direction via a computer game during intraarticular injection is recomended.