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The Influence of Medical Clowns on the Performance of Pulmonary Function Tests Among Preschooler Children

Not Applicable
Conditions
Pneumonia
Asthma
Interventions
Behavioral: medical clown
Registration Number
NCT02708225
Lead Sponsor
Hillel Yaffe Medical Center
Brief Summary

Medical clowns are known to assist in relaxing children and allowing better cooperation during performance of medical procedures.

The ability of medical clowns to improve the motivation of children to perform active tasks was never examined to date.

The investigators would like to examine the influence of the clowns' presence on the performance of pulmonary function test.

Detailed Description

The investigators would like to evaluate the performance of pulmonary function tests among preschool children aged 3-6 years.

Overall 200 children will participate.

The children will perform pulmonary function test without a clown present.

About an hour later half of them will perform the exam again with a medical clown assistance and the second half will repeat the examination without a clown present the differences between the performance will be evaluated.

Recruitment & Eligibility

Status
UNKNOWN
Sex
All
Target Recruitment
200
Inclusion Criteria
  • children visiting the pediatric pulmonology clinic
  • parents signed informed consent
Exclusion Criteria
  • medical or neurological diseases not allowing performance of pulmonary function tests
  • parents refusal

Study & Design

Study Type
INTERVENTIONAL
Study Design
PARALLEL
Arm && Interventions
GroupInterventionDescription
interventional - with a medical clownmedical clownwill perform pulmonary function test without the presence of a clown and an hour later will re-do the test with a medical clown present
Primary Outcome Measures
NameTimeMethod
length of experium (seconds)through study completion; estimate 1 year

length of experium (seconds)

FEV1 (%predicted)through study completion; estimate 1 year

forced experiom volume within 1 second (% predicted)

Secondary Outcome Measures
NameTimeMethod
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