Sara Holm1, Gustaf Ljungman1, Lena Ring1, Anna T Hglund1
1) Sweden
By being more active in communicating about their illness, children’s understanding of their illness improves; their perception of pain during painful procedures is reduced; and the children experience an increased sense of control over their situation.
Pretend play involves an ‘as if’ mindset; the make-believe, and the use of the fantasy. Pretend play has been found to be important for adaptive functioning with special importance for creativity and coping. Play may facilitate insight ability, divergent thinking, perspective-taking and fantasy in play predicts self-reported coping. Most children think pretend play is fun and play that engages a child can serve as distraction in painful or discomforting situations.
The aim was to investigate whether pretend play can contribute to children’s well-being, improvement of communication skills and broaden behavioral/emotional repertoire in pediatric oncology care situations.
The study was a controlled clinical pilot study with a multi method design where both quantitative and qualitative measures were used. Children with any type of cancer and in active or maintenance therapy, aged 4-10 and their parents were included. Generic and cancer specific HrQoL and self-efficacy in care situation was measured before and after intervention. Parents were interviewed after intervention. Pain, discomfort and level of enjoyment were measured in conjunction with every play session.
Pretend play appears to decreases discomfort and pain in children with cancer in active treatment, increases self-efficacy and improves children’s ability to express their needs in care situations.
Presently, data is collected in a large-scale study in Uppsala, Sweden; in Hamburg, Germany and is in the planning stages in Ohio, USA.
Pretend play may be a mean of increasing well being for children with cancer. Measuring well-being in young children still remains a challenge and multi-method designs are required to cover all aspects of pretend play.
