We have developed a psychological intervention to prepare children for surgery under general anesthesia. This intervention consists of Virtual Reality Exposure. The effectiveness of this intervention to reduce anxiety and pain has been investigated in a randomized controlled trial

Eijlers, R. (Robin)

Eijlers, Robin

EUR Research Repository

Propositions related to the thesis Virtual Reality Exposure to Prepare Children for Surgery: Effects on Anxiety and Pain Robin Eijlers  1. Virtual reality (VR) is an effective intervention to reduce anxiety and pain in children undergoing a wide range of painful medical procedures, particularly when used as a distraction tool (Chapter 2, this thesis).  2. Virtual reality exposure (VRE) prior to elective daycare surgery did not result in decreased child anxiety, presumably partly because of excellent family-centered perioperative care at the Erasmus MC Sophia Children’s Hospital as standard (Chapter 4, this thesis).  3. In children, VRE prior to elective daycare surgery for adenoidectomy and tonsillectomy results in a decreased administration of rescue analgesia after surgery (Chapter 4, this thesis).  4. Parental assessment of child state anxiety at hospital arrival, on the day of surgery, is useful to identify children who will experience intense levels of anxiety during anesthesia induction (Chapter 5, this thesis).  5. Children with higher levels of internalizing and externalizing problems have more magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)-related state anxiety, which could lead to biased interpretations of structural and functional MRI results (Chapter 6, this thesis).  6. Parents are important partners for anesthesiologists regarding psychological preparation of children for anesthesia induction (Berghmans et al. 2012).  7. Training programs for operating room personnel should incorporate education on using comforting language, because small changes in wording can result in large differences in outcomes (adapted from Lang et al. 2017).  8. When building digital health technologies for children and adolescents there should be focus on co-creation, so children and adolescents should be involved in the design, development, and implementation of these technologies (adapted from World Health Organization Guideline 2019).   9. In order to overcome the imposter syndrome, which is particularly common in academia, support systems are needed for junior researchers, allowing them to recognize the value in both their professions and themselves (Bothello and Roulet, 2018).  10. While artificial intelligence is playing an increasingly important role in healthcare, it will never be able to replace human clinicians.  11. Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated (Confucius).  

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Virtual Reality Exposure to Prepare Children for Surgery: Effects on Anxiety and Pain

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https://repub.eur.nl/pub/130902/proefschrift-embargoversie-robin-eijlers.pdf

Virtual Reality Exposure to Prepare Children for Surgery: Effects on Anxiety and Pain

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