Editor's Note: Every March is Child Life Month, which is a wonderful spotlight for awareness on the field of Child Life. As part of our celebration, More Than Medicine will "spotlight" child life specialists from various areas of Le Bonheur Children's. Today's post spotlights a child life service that helps to take the fear out of being at the hospital.

by Jamie Droke
Child Life Specialist

In continuing our spotlights during child life month, today we will highlight a service that nearly every specialist has provided in nearly every area: preparation! This week we have been working to educate staff and families in the hospital about our role in preparing children for procedures and we thought we would let you in on the fun!

Preparation for procedures allows the patient and their family the opportunity to learn about the procedure in a way that is non-threatening.  The information is presented in child friendly terms to help ease fears and misconceptions, as well as promote coping. Some parents are hesitant to prepare children for upcoming procedures, but for children, the fear of the unknown is often much worse than the reality. When we can dispel those fears by giving them accurate, honest, and age appropriate information about a procedure, it gives the child an opportunity to cope.

Sometimes the worst part of a procedure is being held down and if a child is prepared and able to hold still, the traumatic feeling of being held down might not even have to happen. Preparations that include sensory descriptions of what the child will experience are most effective. For example, “the first step is that the nurse will clean your arm with cold, wet soap three times.” When a child is expecting something to be cold and wet, it is much less scary when someone uses a cold, wet alcohol wipe to clean their arm.

Here are the Top 10 reasons that preparation for procedures is important.

• Preparation gives children a sense of control
• It minimizes stress and anxiety
• It allows us to address children’s misconceptions
• Preparation promotes appropriate understanding of the procedure
• It helps children develop coping skills
• It helps children plan to implement coping skills
• It gives children a chance to manipulate medial equipment
• Preparation promotes patient and family-centered care
• It encourages compliance during the procedure
• Preparation helps build a sense of trust between child life specialists and patients.

As you can see, preparation is a large part of what we do each day as child life specialists. We prepare children for what they will see, hear, smell, and feel. We prepare parents for what to expect during a procedure or after their child returns from a procedure. When children or parents believe some piece of information is being withheld from them, it causes an increase in anxiety and stress. And one of our biggest goals is to reduce stress and anxiety for patients and families in the hospital. Preparation is just one way we do that!