The Effects of Designing an Educational Animated Movie About Preoperative Preparation on Fear and Post-Operative Pain in Children:A Randomized Controlled Trial

Background: Using visual materials is effective in education to decrease children's pre-operative fear and post-operative pain. Children, especially those aged between 6 and 12 years, are interested in technology. This study aims to investigate the effects of watching an educational animated movie in the pre-operative period on fear and postoperative pain in children who are having surgery.

Methods: The study was a prospective randomized controlled trial. This study was conducted between 6- to 12-year-old children in the Pediatric Surgery Clinic of Ege University Medical Faculty Hospital. The current study includes data from 132 children who were chosen doing block randomization. The "Child and Family Identification Data Form", "Children's Fear Scale" and "Wong-Baker FACES Pain Rating Scale" was used in data collection. The patients were divided randomly into three groups as the "Educational Animated Movie Group" (EAMG), "Documentary Movie Group" (DMG) and "Control Group" (CG). The Educational Animated Movie and Documentary Movie were screened using Virtual Reality (VR). 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 about fear and pain.