The use of suggestive relaxation and guided visual imagery to decrease distress behaviors exhibited by children with leukemia undergoing a medical procedure.
Creators: name: Broadbent, Laurie Anne
Publisher: name: University of Utah
Year: 2012
Subjects: subject: Stress (Psychology) Leukemia
subject: Child
subject: Nursing
subject: FOS: Health sciences

description: The primary goal of this research was to determine if the use of a Suggestive Relaxation and Guided Visual Imagery (SRGVI) technique would significantly decrease the number of distress behavior exhibited by an experimental group experiencing recurrent invasive medical procedures.  A quasi-experimental design was adapted to lend validity to the results and allow for the limited sample size.  A situation specific procedural behavior rating form designed by Katz (1979) and altered by Katz, Kellerman, and Siegel (1980) was adapted and employed by the researcher to document observable distress.  A self-report form of affective feeling was included as a subjective report.  A modification of Dash's (1980) SRVI technique was adopted in this study.  Four hypotheses were tested.  A convenience sample consisting of 25 children was selected from two medical centers in Salt Lake City, Utah.  The control group contained 15 subjects, and the remaining 10 composed the experimental group. Hypothesis I stated there would be no significant difference in the mean number of distress behavior during Phase I of the observation period, exhibited by leukemic children ages 6-12 who participated during a repeated invasive medical procedure in the SRGI technique, and those who did not participate in relaxation intervention.  When analyzed by a t-test, the difference in mean number of distress behaviors exhibited between the control and experimental groups in Phase I, was t-value of -3.36 significant at the .005 level.  Consequently, an analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was calculated to examine the difference in mean number of distress behaviors exhibited between the control and experimental groups during Phase II and Phase III.  Hypothesis I was rejected following analysis of the data. Hypothesis II stated there would be no significant difference in the mean number of distress behaviors during Phase II of the observation period, exhibited by leukemic children ages 6-12 who participated during a; repeated invasive medical procedure in the SRGVI technique, and those who did not participate in the relaxation intervention.  ANCOVA, computed to analyze the difference in mean number of distress behaviors between the control and experimental groups during Phase II using Phase I as the covariate resulted in an F-value of 4.0333 therefore significant at the .055 level.  Hypothesis II was rejected.  Hypothesis III stated there would be no significant difference in the mean number of behavior during Phase III of the observation period exhibited by leukemic children ages 6-12 who participated during a repeated invasive medical procedure in the SRGVI technique, and those who did not participate in the relaxation intervention.  The ANCOVA, computed to analyze the difference in mean number of distress behavior between the control and experimental groups during Phase II, with Phase I as the covariate, resulted in an F-value of 1.867.  This was not a statistically significant value.  Hypothesis III was not rejected.  Hypothesis IV stated there would be no significant difference in the self-report of affective feeling between the control and experimental groups.  Calculation of a t-test to analyze the difference between the two groups resulted in a t-value of .302.  This was not a statistically significant value.  Hypothesis IV was not rejected.  Supplemental findings suggest that the experimental intervention positively affected the number of exhibited distress behaviors.  The experimental group maintained their initial level of distress, while the control group's distress escalated significantly from Phase I to Phase III, passing the experimental group in the number of distress behavior recorded.  .  The statistically significant differences found between the two groups in this research study strongly suggest that the SRGVI technique is useful in controlling distress during invasive medical procedures.