Influência da ludoterapia nos níveis de ansiedade de crianças e adolescentes em tratamento quimioterápico.

Abstract

Play therapy is an important strategy to be implemented in managing the anxiety levels of children and/or adolescents undergoing cancer treatment, rescuing their essence in the face of all the painful and invasive processes in their therapeutic path. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the influence of play therapy with the application of board games on the anxiety levels of children and adolescents undergoing chemotherapy treatment. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This is a prospective, case-control study. The study population included children and adolescents treated at the pediatric oncology unit of a public hospital in northeastern Brazil. The research was carried out between the months of October and December 2023. Data collection took place in the following stages: application of a form with the child's demographic and clinical data, assessment of anxiety in children and adolescents allocated to control groups and board games . For statistical analysis, the data were imported into the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 20. Data distribution was evaluated using the Shapiro-Wilk test and the comparison of clinical data between the groups was evaluated using the t test. of paired samples. RESULTS: 24 patients participated in this study, 13 from the play therapy group and 11 from the control group, the majority of whom were male, mixed race and of preschool age. Around 76.9% said they were from the urban area, the degree of kinship of most caregivers was mothers, and 53.8% of participants were hospitalized for a period of 1 to 15 days. The most common type of cancer was leukemia, all chemotherapy carried out and the time since diagnosis varied between 6 months and 2 years. As for anxiety, 23.1% showed signs of the disorder in the play therapy group, while in the control group it was 9%. In the clinical evaluation, a significant decrease in heart rate was seen in both groups and, after the intervention, caregivers reported more relaxed behavior in group play therapy. CONCLUSIONS: With the implementation of play therapy, there was a significant increase in heart rate, although similar between groups, and reports of more relaxed behavior by caregivers after intervention. Adherence to the practice of play therapy should be increasingly included in pediatric care, in order to ease the process and promote well-being during hospitalization.