'Don't Worry' Freaks Fearful Kids

By Religare

Thursday, June 24, 2010, 16:51

The word fear associates with unusual objects, darkness, painful situations and many others. A recent study has shown that comforting your kids just before medical procedure may develop more of fear and pain. Whereas parents who talk on other things to children cope better.

Meghan McMurty of the Departments of Psychology, Pediatrics and Psychiatry at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia says "It seems counter intuitive that reassurance can hurt."

With this regard, McMurty and her colleagues did an experiment on100 children between ages 5 and 10 and their parents to a place. After which children were asked to take a blood test in an an outpatient blood lab.

Simultaneously videotape was also taken to see parents and kids interaction, along with video vignettes by actors showcasing the same behaviours and children were asked to rate what they saw in the videos.

The result showed that parents who raised their tone and showed tensed facial expressions caused more fear in the children. Reassuring parents can convey worry, and worried facial expressions play a powerful role, the authors suggest.

Then should parents smile if their child is dreading a shot?

"The best thing to do is distract. It's also very tempting for health care professionals to reassure. Historically health care professionals' training in pain management is not very good," said McMurty.

She looks forward that she will create a research-based tip to help parents and professionals to lower childrens' anxiety about medical procedures.

Vote this article