Preoperative Anxiety in Paediatric Patients; do Cartoons Help?

After local ethics committee approval 60 patients scheduled for various types of surgery will be included.

On the operation day patients are going to be evaluated in the preoperative preparation room. For anxiety evaluation the modified yale preoperative anxiety scale will be used. After this first evaluation patients are going to be separated randomly into two groups; group R (routine) and group C (cartoon). All patients are going to be premedicated with midazolam. The first group will receive their premedication straight after the first evaluation and their response will be recorded as easy, moderate, difficult, does not accept. Group C will choose a cartoon movie (5 different movies are recorded and will be shown through a tablet PC)) and will begin to watch it. After 5 minutes they will receive their premedication and their response will also be recorded. After 30 minutes a physician will try to insert an IV line and the response of the child will also be evaluated and recorded as easy, moderate, difficult and does not allow. Afterwards the patient will be transported into the operation room. In the operation room anesthesia will be induced via Sevoflurane and the response to mask anesthesia will be evaluated with the mask score as it is described before in previous studies. Patients in Group C will continue to watch the cartoon movie until the induction of anesthesia. And the modified yale score will also be reevaluated and recorded.

The family anxiety will be evaluated with the State Trait Anxiety Inventory Scale.

The family and the child will also be interviewed separately, 4 prepared standard questions will be asked in order to understand how the family described the operation.