Reducing Medical Fears in a General Population of Children: A Comparison of Three Audiovisual Modeling Procedures

Abstract

This study investigated the relative efficacy of three audiovisual peer model ing procedures previously found effective in reducing children's self-reported medical fears. Groups of third- and fifth-grade nonpatient children viewed one of the three audiovisual procedures or a control film unrelated to the hospital setting. Three self-report measures of anxiety were taken 3 weeks prior to, immediately after, and 3 weeks after viewing the audiovisual proce dures. At premeasure, girls reported significantly greater medical fears (situ ational anxiety) than boys; however, no significant difference in mean fear levels were found between groups due to grade or audiovisual procedure. Thus, the three procedures were not uniformly effective in reducing medical fears of nonpatient children. Nevertheless, post hoc analysis indicated that more highly fearful children, viewing any of the three experimental audi ovisual procedures, decreased their medical fears relative to baseline. No sig nificant changes were found for low fearful children. Acquisition of medical knowledge was significantly greater for children viewing one of the experimen tal procedures. Medical knowledge was also significantly greater for fifth-grade children than for third-grade children, regardless of audiovisual procedure.