Children, especially younger ones, typically fear being separated
from their parents during medical visits. This fear may be heightened
when the child finds themselves in the strange environment of a
treatment room surrounded by unfamiliar people and facing a possibly
painful experience. Loss of autonomy and control may cause the young
child a great deal of anxiety.
Therapeutic play may help to reduce children stress. This play
can help prepare children to face upcoming events, or it can provide
catharsis by allowing children to express feelings and to reconcile, both
cognitively and emotionally, painful or frightening events.
Study was done to assess the effectiveness of therapeutic play in
terms of anxiety and behavioral response among hospitalized preschool
children in Masonic hospital at Coimbatore.
The conceptual framework of the study was based on the
modified Widenbach’s Selphing art of clinical nursing. The study
design was one group pretest post test pre experimental design – non
probability purposive sampling technique was used to select 60 samples
for the study. The demographics variables are collected and pretest was
conducted on the first day by using anxiety rating scale and behavioral
response rating scale to assess the level of anxiety and behavioral
response level. Immediately after the pretest therapeutic play was given
for 30 minutes for the hospitalized preschool children. The therapeutic
play was given for 2 times perday, on the next day assess the post test.
The data gathered were analyzed employing descriptive and inferential
statistics.
There is significant difference between pretest and posttest anxiety
score (‘t’ value = 18.9) and behavioral response (‘t’ value = 29.66). The
result showed that therapeutic play to reduced anxiety and improved
behavioral response among hospitalized preschool children