Home-Initiated Programme to Prepare for Operation (HIPPO) Study
Condition: Anxiety; Fear of Pain; Child Behavior
MeSH terms: Anxiety Disorders
Study type: Interventional

Summary: 
      A hospital admission and surgical operation commonly triggers great fear and anxiety to young
      children. This is caused by either lack of knowledge or misconception. Although parent and
      families are often given the task to prepare the child for the oncoming surgery, they often
      lack information and skill to accomplish this task. Although numerous measures such as
      pre-operative play room, parental companion during induction, distraction therapy have been
      employed in our institution, this remains to be a challenge for care of young surgical
      patients.

      Our study proposes to use a "prepare-for-operation" (PFO) bundle to assist our paediatric
      patients and their families to prepare for surgery. The PFO bundle consists of an informative
      cartoon video illustrating sequence of events occurring in admission, anesthesia and surgery.
      The video is also accompanied by activity sheets to encourage patient and family to engage,
      participate and learn about all these events. They will be instructed to use this PFO bundle
      before admission. We believe that through this off-site and cost-effective intervention, the
      fear of children undergoing surgery will be significantly alleviated. The family will also
      have better satisfaction on hospitalization experience. If proven feasible and effective,
      this will be a simple intervention tool that can be made accessible to all KKH pediatric
      patients.
    

Detailed description: 
      Research Plan: A prospective assessor-blinded randomized controlled which will recruit 130
      pediatric surgical patients aged 4-10 years, undergoing elective operation in KKH. Eligible
      patients will be identified when an operation date has been booked. They will be approached
      by a research coordinator (RC) who will counsel about the study details, and recruited after
      consent.

      Randomisaiton will be performed. The subjects will be randomised into group A and group B.

      Group A will undergo standard workflow for elective surgical admissions.

      Group B, in addition to standard workflow, will also receive the PFO bundle which consists
      of:

      A cartoon video of about 6 minutes duration illustrating the events occuring during
      admission, anaesthesia and surgery. Video will be given out in DVD and/or with a weblink and
      a QR code for scanning. The weblink is password protected and is only given to participant
      and their parents randomised into the video group. Instruction will be given to participants
      and their parents to watch the video 3 days prior to admission

      Sets of activity sheets which have been tailored for different age groups. Families would be
      encouraged to complete activity sheets together.
    

Intervention name(s): Video
Intervention type(s): Other
Intervention description(s): In addition to standard workflow, participants will also receive the PFO bundle which consists of: 1) A cartoon video of about 6 minutes duration illustrating the events occurring during admission, anaesthesia and surgery and 2) Sets of activity sheets which have been tailored for different age groups. Families would be encouraged to complete activity sheets together.
Allocation: Randomized
Intervention model: Parallel Assignment
Masking: Double (Care Provider, Outcomes Assessor)
Primary purpose: Other
Keywords: anxiety; pre-operation