CClinicalTrials.gg
CompletedNCT01858142PPDTUpdated Mar 21, 2016

Helping Parents to Decide Whether They Want to be With Their Child During Anesthesia Induction

An interventional study of Parental presence decision tool and Standard preparation in Pre-operative Anxiety, sponsored by IWK Health Centre. Completed at 1 site in Canada. Open to participants aged 2 Years to 10 Years. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2016-03-21.

Sponsored by IWK Health Centre · Not applicable, Interventional, and Prevention

Phase
Not applicable
Study type
Interventional
Enrollment
104
Allocation
Randomized
Ages
2 Years to 10 Years
Sex
All
01

Study summary

Children are distressed at anesthesia induction and this distress can result in maladaptive recovery outcomes. Having parents be present at anesthesia induction (PPIA) has been suggested as a potential intervention to decrease children's distress, and this intervention is widely favored by parents. However, to date, PPIA has not been found to be effective in reducing children's anxiety. The lack of efficacy may be attributable to the fact that parents have generally not been prepared for PPIA. The one study that prepared parents (as part of a larger preoperative preparation program) found that PPIA with preparation was superior to PPIA as previously studied (without preparation). Unfortunately, this program is resource intensive and therefore is not clinically feasible. This study will compare PPIA with a clinically feasible preparation program to PPIA with standard care (minimal preparation). Should our intervention show evidence of efficacy, the investigators will have designed a program that is easily translatable to everyday clinical practice. This will, in turn, reduce children's anxiety, improve postoperative outcomes and increase parental satisfaction.

02

Conditions studied

  • Pre-operative Anxiety

Keywords

  • Pediatric anesthesia
  • Pre-operative anxiety
  • parental presence
  • children
  • elective surgical procedures
  • mask induction
03

In context

Lead sponsor

IWK Health Centre is the lead sponsor of 83 studies on the registry; 17 are open to participants now.

Counted across the registry records on this site, refreshed daily.

04

Who can participate

Ages eligible
2 Years to 10 Years
Sexes eligible
All
Accepts healthy volunteers
No

Inclusion criteria

  • Ages 2 to 10
  • Scheduled for elective surgical procedure at IWK Health Centre
  • Mask induction
  • ASA classification I or II

Exclusion criteria

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Intravenous induction
  • Diagnosed development delay
  • ASA classification III or higher
  • Pre-medication with benzodiazepine
05

Study design

Phase
Not applicable
Primary purpose
Prevention
Allocation
Randomized
Intervention model
Parallel assignment
Masking
Single (Outcomes assessor)
Enrollment
104 participants (actual)

Study arms

  • Experimental
    Preparation intervention

    The parental presence decision tool will be delivered as an App shown to families using an iPAD and a set of headphones. This App will include information on what to expect in the operating room as well as the role of the parents. The App incorporates the basic principles of other effective perioperative preparation interventions (e.g., providing both sensory and procedural information) and is tailored to the local context. In addition to preparatory information, the App will also inform parents of the role of parent anxiety on children's outcomes in the operating room.

    Behavioral: Parental presence decision tool

  • Placebo comparator
    Standard preparation

    In standard preparation condition, treating nurses and anesthesiologists will provide information to parents as they standardly do when parents are present at induction; this includes information on logistical issues and safety in the operating room (e.g., where to stand, how to put on gown) and risks of anesthesia induction. Additionally, parents in the standard preparation condition will view a summary of this standard information as text on an iPAD.

    Behavioral: Standard preparation

Interventions

  • BehavioralParental presence decision tool
  • BehavioralStandard preparation
06

What researchers measure

Primary outcomes

  1. Modified Yale Pre-Operative Anxiety Scale

    Yale Preoperative Anxiety Scale (mYPAS; Kain et al., 1997). This researcher completed measure is made up of 5 categories (e.g., activity, vocalizations) each rated on ordinal behaviorally anchored scales. Total scores on the measure range from 23 to 100, with higher scores indicating higher child anxiety at induction. The tool has shown good convergent validity with another measure of child anxiety (r = 0.79), and excellent inter-rater reliability (kappa range 0.63-0.90). A cutoff score of 30 has been shown to have the best balance of sensitivity (0.85) and specificity (0.92). NOTE: Most of the measure is administered post-treatment, but part of it begins pre-treatment at baseline.

    Time frame: post-treatment (following intervention); average=15 minutes after treatment

07

Study locations

1 site
  • IWK Health Centre
    Halifax, Nova Scotia B3K 6R8, Canada
08

Updates

Tracking since Sep 25, 2026
No changes since tracking began. The registry record was last updated on Mar 21, 2016, before this site started recording changes on Sep 25, 2026. Its history is on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗
09

Registry details

Key details

Study ID
NCT01858142
Lead sponsor
IWK Health Centre
Responsible party
Patrick J. McGrath (Supervisor, IWK Health Centre) — Principal investigator
First posted
May 21, 2013
Start date
Jun 2013
Primary completion
Aug 2013
Last update
Mar 21, 2016

Study contacts

Jill Chorney, PhD
principal investigator · IWK Health Centre

Oversight

Data monitoring committee
No
View the source record on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗

Not currently enrolling

This study is completed, as verified in Mar 2016. You cannot join it, but the record below documents what was studied.

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