Credit: Logan Tuttle
A new study suggests videoconferencing with family and friends can lower stress for pediatric patients who are hospitalized for an extended period.
UC Davis Children’s Hospital provides these patients with laptops, webcams, and secure Internet connections for videoconferencing.
And anecdotal accounts have suggested the service, called Family-Link, benefits patients. But researchers wanted more concrete evidence that Family-Link can reduce anxiety.
To that end, James Marcin, MD, and his colleagues studied 367 children who were hospitalized at UC Davis for at least 4 days.
Two hundred and thirty-two patients took advantage of the videoconferencing service, and 135 did not. The researchers used the Parent-Guardian Stress Survey to assess the children’s anxiety levels, both at admission and discharge.
The survey included 4 question groups centered on each child’s behavior and emotions, staff communication, sights and sounds, and the child’s appearance. Parents/guardians were asked whether the child exhibited a variety of behaviors, such as being demanding, frightened, angry, or confused.
The survey also included questions about the impact of monitoring equipment on stress levels and the staff’s ability to communicate important details about the child’s care.
Overall, children who used Family-Link experienced a greater reduction in stress than children who did not use the service.
The researchers were surprised to find this effect was even more pronounced for children who lived closer to the hospital and had shorter hospitalizations. This group experienced a 37% stress reduction when using Family-Link.
“This study shows that we have another tool to help children during their hospital stays,” said Nikki Yang, first author on the study. “The improvement in stress scores shows that Family-Link is really helping many children and might possibly be improving outcomes.”
Yang and her colleagues reported these findings in Pediatrics.
