Child fears in hospital settings: A study with hospitalised and non-hospitalised children

The main aim of this work is to find out if hospitalized children who are going to be operated are more afraid than the general child population. Furthermore, the most feared aspects of the hospitalization and surgical experience, the influence of the previous hospitalization and the relation between anxiety trait and fear to hospitalization are analyzed too. A sample was taken of 142 hospitalized and non-hospitalizated children. The threat and the anxiety were evaluated by the Hospital Fears Rating Scale and the Anxiety Scale for children respectively. The results indicate that hospitalized children had more threat than non-hospitalizated children of going to the dentist, going to the physician, injections, being dizzied, seeing blood, vomiting and people who use masks. Generally, differences due to previous hospitalization experience and to the interaction between both factors did not appear. Lastly, a positive correlation was found between anxiety-trait and hospitalization and surgery fear. In conclusion, hospitalized children are more afraid of more hospitalization events than non-hospitalized children, independently of their previous hospitalization experience.