An interventional study of Multisensory Stimulation in Anxiety, Fear and Multisensory Stimulation, sponsored by Bilecik Seyh Edebali Universitesi. Not yet recruiting at 1 site in Turkey (Türkiye). Open to participants aged 5 Years to 10 Years, including healthy volunteers. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2026-08-19.
Sponsored by Bilecik Seyh Edebali Universitesi · Not applicable, Interventional, and Health services research
Encounters with healthcare services during childhood, particularly surgical evaluation processes, are a significant source of stress for both children and their parents. The initial evaluation, physical examination, and the prospect of a possible procedure conducted in pediatric surgery outpatient clinics can lead to increased levels of anxiety and fear in children. This situation not only affects the child's current psychological state but also reduces their cooperation during the examination, makes collaboration with healthcare professionals more difficult, and can negatively impact the overall healthcare experience. Increased levels of anxiety and fear in children are not limited to emotional reactions alone; they also affect physiological and behavioral responses, thereby shaping the entire healthcare process. Similarly, parents may also experience significant situational anxiety due to uncertainty about their child's health status, the possibility of surgical intervention, and the responsibility for care. Parental anxiety is a significant factor that can influence children's levels of anxiety and fear and can indirectly shape the child's healthcare experience through parent-child interaction.
In recent years, there has been an interest in non-pharmacological interventions to address anxiety and fear levels in pediatric healthcare. Methods such as distraction techniques, digital applications, game solutions, and multisensory stimulation have proven effective in children's health experiences. Multisensory stimulation, particularly with materials containing content targeting the senses of sight, hearing, smell, and touch, is a holistic, non-pharmacological approach that helps reduce developmental stage problems, behavioral issues, pain, fear, and anxiety in children. In its basic mechanism, multisensory stimulation activates tactile, thermal, and emotional systems, providing multiple stimuli and diverting children's attention away from the stressor through simultaneous auditory stimuli. The resulting sensory integration and attention redirection effect can contribute to the improvement of anxiety and fear levels. Among multisensory stimulation applications are: Mother-baby communication, skin-to-skin contact, breastfeeding which activates sensory receptors and taste in the skin, the use of amniotic fluid or aromatic scents are included. In addition, practices such as making eye contact with the baby, speaking in a soft tone of voice, massaging, coordinating and using parental credit are among the components of multisensory stimulation. However, it is noted that this is largely focused on childbirth and that the clinical limits are restricted.
There is limited scientific evidence in the literature that multisensory stimulation may be effective in reducing pain and fear, especially after surgical procedures, in the days of birth. It is observed that the current centers, with multiple voice alerts, are quite limited in addressing the anxiety and fear at home before clinical encounters in pediatric surgery outpatient clinics, where most neonatal or pre-operative processes are evaluated, and the situational anxiety of individuals is addressed together with outbreaks. However, the outpatient setting has critical relationships as the first point of contact with the modern health system, and the anxiety, fear, and parental anxiety experienced at this stage significantly affect the child's subsequent health experiences and compliance with health services. Therefore, the emergence of effective, short-term, and non-pharmacological interventions in the pre-clinical encounter period will be of great importance. In line with this, these randomized controlled trials are planned to examine the effect of multiple sensory stimuli on the situational anxiety of individuals in pediatric surgery outpatient clinics, prior to clinical encounters, and in terms of anxiety and fear. The study results will contribute to supporting a low-level, effective, and effective intervention in pediatric surgery outpatient clinics. Furthermore, it will lay the groundwork for demonstrable practices that will strengthen this developmental, child and family-centered care approach and contribute to the widespread use of psychosocial support practices in pediatric health services.
7,207 studies on the registry are indexed under Anxiety Disorders; 1,682 are open to participants now.
This study's planned enrollment of 80 is close to the median of 80 across 6,062 interventional studies indexed under Anxiety Disorders.
Browse Anxiety Disorders studies →Bilecik Seyh Edebali Universitesi is the lead sponsor of 62 studies on the registry; 27 are open to participants now.
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The Effect of Multisensory Stimulation on Pain and Anxiety in Children with Pediatric Surgery
Other: Multisensory Stimulation
Multisensory Stimulation
Children's Pre-procedural Anxiety Level
Children's Anxiety Scale - State Scale The CAS-S resembles a thermometer featuring a bulb at the bottom and horizontal lines spaced at intervals as they rise upwards. Designed for children aged four to ten, this scale instructs children to "Imagine that all your anxious or nervous feelings are in the bulb or lower part of the thermometer." "If you feel a little anxious or tense, your feelings may rise a little higher on the thermometer. "Put a line on the thermometer to show how anxious or nervous you are." It was discovered during the researchers' data collection process that some children were familiar with the typical mercury thermometer represented on the scale, and when children did not understand this analogy, they used an alternative scenario that did not explicitly describe a thermometer. Children are told, "Think of all the anxious or nervous feelings as being at the bottom here (point with your finger on the scale).
Time frame: (Baseline / Pre-encounter
Children's Fear Level
The Child Fear Scale (CFS), validated and proven reliable by Gerçeker et al. (2018), is used to measure a child's anxiety level. The CFS is a scale that evaluates children's anxiety levels using a 0-4 rating system, consisting of five drawn facial expressions ranging from a neutral expression (0=no anxiety) to a frightened face (4=severe anxiety). It can be used by families and researchers to assess pre-procedural and intra-procedural pain and anxiety in children and is aimed at children aged 5-10 years. The CFS is based on the Faces Anxiety Scale developed by McKinley et al. (2003) to measure the fear or anxiety of adults in the intensive care unit. It is a scale consisting of one item and five gender-neutral faces. The facial muscle changes in the fearful expressions were drawn by a graphic artist based on photographs of frightened faces. The scale will be administered to children as a pre-test and post-test.
Time frame: Baseline / Pre-encounter
Parental State Anxiety Level
State-Trait Anxiety Inventory A 10-item short version of the 40-item State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) was developed by Zsido et al. In the process of shortening the STAI, Zsido et al. (2020) first removed the reverse-scored items from the scale and then reduced these inventories to their short 5-item forms (STAIS-5 and STAIT-5) by performing confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), item response theory analysis, and ROC analysis to preserve the best discriminating items. The 4-point Likert-type scales consist of 5 items. The emotions and behaviors indicated in STAIS-5 are marked according to their degree of severity as 1 = None, 2 = Somewhat, 3 = Moderately, 4 = Very much; and the STAIT-5 items are marked as 1 = None, 2 = Sometimes, 3 = Moderately, 4 = Very much. Individuals scoring 10 or higher on STAIS-5 and 14 or higher on STAIT-5 are considered clinically anxious. The Cronbach's alpha values for STAIS-5 and STAIT-5 were calculated as 0.86 and 0.91.
Time frame: Baseline / Pre-encounter
Plan to share: No — Individual Participant Data (IPD) will not be made publicly available or shared for this study due to ethical considerations regarding participant confidentiality and the explicit terms of the informed consent protocol. Specifically: Informed Consent Constraints: The informed consent forms approved by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) / Ethics Committee and signed by the parents/guardians do not include permissions for raw, individual-level data sharing with external third parties or public repositories. Privacy and Vulnerability: Given that the study population consists of pediatric patients undergoing clinical evaluations, raw IPD contains sensitive demographic and clinical details that could potentially compromise participant anonymity. De-identified aggregate statistical data, protocol details, and final study findings will be made available through published peer-reviewed journal articles and clinical trial registries upon study completion.
Start is estimated for Jul 2026; primary completion for Aug 2026, 0 months later.
Of 3,841 non-industry interventional studies with no phase under Anxiety Disorders, half reached primary completion within 12 months of starting (the median), counting those still running; a quarter within 5 and three quarters within 28. This study's planned 0 months is below that.
Counting every sponsor, half of 3,943 studies reached it within 12 months; a quarter within 5 and three quarters within 28.
How these figures are worked out, and which studies are left out of them.
This study is not yet recruiting, as verified in Aug 2026. You cannot join it, but the record below documents what was studied.
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Bilecik Seyh Edebali Universitesi