AbstractSurgery creates a series of traumatic and stressful events in children. The present study evaluated the effectiveness of a multimedia educational programme on anxiety, pain intensity and selected post-operative complications among children undergoing elective abdominal surgery. The study was conducted in a Tertiary care Hospital, Ernakulam, Kerala. Experimental pre-test post test control group design was adopted for the study. Purposive sampling was adopted and the children between the age group of seven and fifteen years were randomly and equally assigned to control (n=50) and experimental (n=50) conditions. Multimedia educational programme was given to each of the parent- child dyad in the experimental group and the control group received routine care. Tools used were anxiety rating scale, numeric pain rating scale, respiratory and wound assessment scales. Findings of the study revealed that the baseline variables were homogeneously distributed in both the groups. There was a significant
reduction in anxiety (post test 1 t= 3.90 p< 0.001, post-test 2, t= -3.86 p,0.0001) and pain intensity (p< 0.0001, Mann Whitney U 124.50) of children in the experimental group. It also found a significant improvement of respiratory status (p< 0.0001, Mann Whitney U 365.50) and wound status (p< 0.0001, Mann Whitney U 345.50) of children in the experimental group. There was a significant association of pre-test anxiety of children undergoingelective abdominal surgery with gender (χ2 =7.70, p, <.05) .The results suggests that providing multimedia educational programme for children along with their parents had significantly reduced anxiety at various points of time, pain intensity and thereby preventing respiratory and wound infections.
Keywords: Anxiety; Children; Multimedia; Pain; Surgery.