Impact of a preoperative child-parent accompaniment procedure on the anxiety of children aged 5 to 12 with scheduled surgery: a pilot comparative randomized trial.

Background: Surgical management of a child is a life stage in its own right. It generates anxiety for the child and their parents. The management of preoperative anxiety is a major issue in improving the quality of care and avoiding potential psychological repercussions. Different procedures can partially reduce anxiety, especially the presence of the parents, accompaniment to the operating room with a toy, etc. However, in France, during a surgical procedure, only 4% of parents are present at anesthetic induction. Thus, the development of a comprehensive support procedure including, in particular, parental accompaniment, would appear necessary.Aim: To compare, at the time of anesthetic induction, the level of anxiety of children aged 5 to 12 years between the group having benefited from a comprehensive support procedure and the control group benefiting from the usual care.Method: This was a randomized, open-label, comparative pilot study. One group of children benefited from the overall support procedure including: an explanatory booklet of the patient pathway given to the child during the pre-anesthesia consultation, the viewing of a film showing the places and different stages as well as the explanation of the parental presence in pre-anesthesia and during recovery.Results: 47 children participated in the study, the average age was 8 years. Median anxiety as measured by the Modified Yale Preoperative Anxiety Scale was 22.9 compared to 36.5 for the control group, with no statistically significant difference. It should be noted that a score of less than 25 indicates that the patient has no anxiety.Conclusion: The specific support procedure developed in our study appears to be able to improve child anxiety, despite the low sample size. A larger, multicenter study would yield statistically significant results.