Young children experience little emotional burden during invasive procedures in asthma research

• Published in: European journal of pediatrics 2019-02, Vol.178 (2), p.207-211
• Main Authors: Padding, Anne M., Rutjes, Niels W., Hashimoto, Simone, Vos, Amit, Staphorst, Mira S., van Aalderen, Wim M. C., van der Schee, Marc P.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Asthma; Asthma - psychology; Biomedical Research - statistics & numerical data; Child; Child, Preschool; Children; Emotions; Ethics, Research; Fear; Female; Humans; Male; Medical research; Medicine; Medicine & Public Health; Original; Original Article; Parents; Participation; Patient Participation - psychology; Pediatrics; Phlebotomy; Phlebotomy - psychology; Play and Playthings; Research Subjects - psychology; Surveys and Questionnaires; Visual Analog Scale
• ISSN: 0340-6199; 1432-1076
• DOI: 10.1007/s00431-018-3265-0

Research in children should strike the right balance between protecting underage study subjects and advancing the medical field. This study gives insight into the emotional burden that common invasive research procedures in asthma research have on young children, both from the child and parent perspective. Puppetry was used to stimulate children (age 5–6 years) to explain their emotional burden prior to and after the research procedures. We operationalised emotional burden as willingness to participate in future research and reluctance towards participation. Parents filled out a questionnaire on this topic. Symptomatic patients as well as healthy controls were analysed. Forty-one children were included. Children’s anticipatory fear for future research showed a clear decrease of 0.7 ± 1.6 on a 5-point Likert scale as a consequence of participation ( p  = 0.02). Sixty percent of all participating children explicitly indicated willingness to undergo identical research procedures again. Children uninformed by their parents about the venipuncture were significantly more reluctant to the venipuncture after the procedure ( p