Loading
Music Therapy and Health / Childhood Cancer Survivors' Quality of Life · Journal article
Cardiology in the Young · July 7, 2026
Encouraging direction, but not yet definitive.
This single-centre RCT of 70 children found that therapeutic play during angiography resulted in statistically significantly lower pain, fear, and anxiety scores compared to control. However, the effect sizes are not reported, and the study lacks information on allocation concealment, blinding, and attrition, limiting confidence in the magnitude of benefit.
Randomised controlled experimental trial. Children aged 4–10 years undergoing angiography at the paediatric cardiology clinic of a university hospital; 57.1% female, mean age 6.48±2.36 years, 45.7% with ASD diagnosis, 78.6% surgery-naive, 60% hospitalised for follow-up.. Intervention: Therapeutic play programme prior to angiography.. Compared with: Standard care (control group receiving angiography without therapeutic play).. n = 70. Single university hospital paediatric cardiology clinic (country not specified)..
70 children randomised (35 experimental, 35 control) at a single university hospital paediatric cardiology clinic. Difference between pain, fear and anxiety scores after therapeutic play was statistically significant (p < 0.05). 57.1% female, mean age 6.48±2.36 years; 45.7% had ASD diagnosis.
Safety was not reported in the material analysed. Check the source before drawing any conclusion about harm.
Therapeutic play appears to reduce child distress during angiography, a finding relevant to paediatric nursing practice. However, the absence of effect sizes and lack of methodological detail limit the strength of recommendation for routine implementation.
A single-centre RCT with modest sample size showing statistically significant reductions in pain, fear and anxiety with therapeutic play, but lacking effect sizes, confidence intervals, and hard clinical outcomes.
As stated by the source record.
Quoted from the source exactly as published.
Therapeutic play appears to reduce child distress during angiography, a finding relevant to paediatric nursing practice. However, the absence of effect sizes and lack of methodological detail limit the strength of recommendation for routine implementation.
Graded across the dimensions that decide whether you should act, each from what the source actually supports. There is no single score, and where a dimension was not assessed it says so.
Abstract Objective: This study investigated the effects of therapeutic play on angiography in children aged 4–10. Methods: Our study was conducted as a randomised controlled experimental trial with 70 (experimental: 35, control: 35) children undergoing angiography at the paediatric cardiology clinic of a university hospital between 1 January 2022 and 31 August 2022. The “Child Information Form”, “Wong-Baker Faces Pain Rating Scale”, “Children’s Fear Scale”, “Children’s Anxiety Meter-State” and “Doll Model” were used for data collection. Percentage, mean, pearson correlation, ANOVA were used in the evaluation of the data. Results: It was found that 57.1% of the children who participated in our study were female, their mean age was 6.48±2.36 years, 45.7% had the diagnosis of Atrial Septal Defect (ASD), 78.6% had not undergone any surgery before and 60% were hospitalised for follow-up. It was found that the difference between pain, fear and anxiety scores of the children after the therapeutic play programme was statistically significant (p ˂ 0.05). Conclusions: Our study found that therapeutic play programmes can reduce pain, fear and anxiety in children. These findings demonstrate that negative experiences during invasive procedures affect children not only physiologically, but also psychologically and behaviourally. Therapeutic play can therefore be a powerful supportive intervention. Therefore, we recommend integrating therapeutic play into nursing clinical guidelines and care protocols, and providing paediatric nurses with training in this area.
Taken from the source record, never inferred. Follow any of these and new work involving them reaches your briefing.