2008, Cilt 15, Sayı 2, Sayfa(lar) 068-076
Preoperative Preparation for Children
Dr. Naime CİHANGİR ALTAY
Keywords: Child, preoperative preparation, nurse

Preoperatif care is a process that starts with making the operation decision of a child and continues till the operation. The preoperational period is a stressful situation both for the child and the family of that child. Nursing approaches for decreasing the preoperational anxiety of the children include pharmacological and behavioral methods. Pharmacological methods include premedication. Behavioral methods are parent-present induction of anesthesia, introduction of the hospital and the operating room, therapeutic play, reading story books and children drawings. The nurse is the person who is primary in the preoperational preparation of the child and the parents. The nurse is responsible for understanding the anxiety and fear of the child and the family and planning and applying the approaches to eliminate them. The nurse plans and applies the preoperational preparation program in accordance with the personal characteristics of the parents and the child.