Story Telling Project in Pediatric Surgery, a non- pharmacological method to allay preoperative anxiety: Experience of a single center

Background : Hospitalization can be a traumatic event for pediatric patients. We want to share our experimental project of "Hospitalization without anxiety" we have proposed to our patients in order to try to make their hospital stay easier and less traumatic as possible. Patients and Methods : In this monocentric randomized case-control study all children who underwent surgical procedures at Pediatric Surgery Department of Siena from November 2021 to October 2022 were enrolled. Patients were divided into two groups: group A included children who took part in storytelling activity and group B the control patients who did not take part in. Demographic data, preoperative and surgical data and postoperative outcome were analyzed. Patients of both groups were evaluated before surgery, specifically before the story telling activity (T0) and after the story telling activity (T1) through the m-YPAS anxiety scale and after surgery (T2) with the WATCHA-behavioural scale. The cut off for anxiety valuation state was 30 (+/- 5 of sd) for m-YPAS, >2 for WATCHA-behavioural scale. Results : 52 patients with a mean age at evaluation of 8 years [5-12] were included in the study . Of them, 48 (5 females, 12 males), 23/group A and 25/group B were tested. 66,7% of patients, with m-YPAS >30 before the activity, had an improvement in anxiety preoperative management after, they were 16,6% on all study participants. Instead the results obtained through WATCHA-behavioural valuation not depended by activity. Conclusions : Based on our results, we can state that our story-telling activity has aroused positive effects in our patients, it should be considered a valid alternative to non-pharmacological therapies for the management of perioperative anxiety. Anxiety-free hospitalization should be considered in all pediatric departments, especially in surgical ones.