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Clowns Benefit Children Hospitalized for Respiratory Pathologies
The study aims at evaluating health-generating function of humor therapy in a hospital ward hosting children suffering from respiratory pathologies. The main scope of this study is to investigate possible positive effects of the presence of a clown on both the clinical evolution of the on-going dise...
Autores principales: | , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Hindawi Publishing Corporation
2011
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3137769/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21785637 http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/ecam/neq064 |
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author | Bertini, Mario Isola, Elena Paolone, Giuseppe Curcio, Giuseppe |
author_facet | Bertini, Mario Isola, Elena Paolone, Giuseppe Curcio, Giuseppe |
author_sort | Bertini, Mario |
collection | PubMed |
description | The study aims at evaluating health-generating function of humor therapy in a hospital ward hosting children suffering from respiratory pathologies. The main scope of this study is to investigate possible positive effects of the presence of a clown on both the clinical evolution of the on-going disease, and on some physiological and pain parameters. Forty-three children with respiratory pathologies participated in the study: 21 of them belonged to the experimental group (EG) and 22 children to the control group (CG). During their hospitalization, the children of the EG interacted with two clowns who were experienced in the field of pediatric intervention. All participants were evaluated with respect to clinical progress and to a series of physiological and pain measures both before and after the clown interaction. When compared with the CG, EG children showed an earlier disappearance of the pathological symptoms. Moreover, the interaction of the clown with the children led to a statistically significant lowering of diastolic blood pressure, respiratory frequency and temperature in the EG as compared with the control group. The other two parameters of systolic pressure and heart frequency yielded results in the same direction, without reaching statistical significance. A similar health-inducing effect of clown presence was observed on pain parameters, both by self evaluation and assessment by nurses. Taken together, our data indicate that the presence of clowns in the ward has a possible health-inducing effect. Thus, humor can be seen as an easy-to-use, inexpensive and natural therapeutic modality to be used within different therapeutic settings. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-3137769 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2011 |
publisher | Hindawi Publishing Corporation |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-31377692011-07-22 Clowns Benefit Children Hospitalized for Respiratory Pathologies Bertini, Mario Isola, Elena Paolone, Giuseppe Curcio, Giuseppe Evid Based Complement Alternat Med Original Article The study aims at evaluating health-generating function of humor therapy in a hospital ward hosting children suffering from respiratory pathologies. The main scope of this study is to investigate possible positive effects of the presence of a clown on both the clinical evolution of the on-going disease, and on some physiological and pain parameters. Forty-three children with respiratory pathologies participated in the study: 21 of them belonged to the experimental group (EG) and 22 children to the control group (CG). During their hospitalization, the children of the EG interacted with two clowns who were experienced in the field of pediatric intervention. All participants were evaluated with respect to clinical progress and to a series of physiological and pain measures both before and after the clown interaction. When compared with the CG, EG children showed an earlier disappearance of the pathological symptoms. Moreover, the interaction of the clown with the children led to a statistically significant lowering of diastolic blood pressure, respiratory frequency and temperature in the EG as compared with the control group. The other two parameters of systolic pressure and heart frequency yielded results in the same direction, without reaching statistical significance. A similar health-inducing effect of clown presence was observed on pain parameters, both by self evaluation and assessment by nurses. Taken together, our data indicate that the presence of clowns in the ward has a possible health-inducing effect. Thus, humor can be seen as an easy-to-use, inexpensive and natural therapeutic modality to be used within different therapeutic settings. Hindawi Publishing Corporation 2011 2011-03-15 /pmc/articles/PMC3137769/ /pubmed/21785637 http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/ecam/neq064 Text en Copyright © 2011 Mario Bertini et al. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
spellingShingle | Original Article Bertini, Mario Isola, Elena Paolone, Giuseppe Curcio, Giuseppe Clowns Benefit Children Hospitalized for Respiratory Pathologies |
title | Clowns Benefit Children Hospitalized for Respiratory Pathologies |
title_full | Clowns Benefit Children Hospitalized for Respiratory Pathologies |
title_fullStr | Clowns Benefit Children Hospitalized for Respiratory Pathologies |
title_full_unstemmed | Clowns Benefit Children Hospitalized for Respiratory Pathologies |
title_short | Clowns Benefit Children Hospitalized for Respiratory Pathologies |
title_sort | clowns benefit children hospitalized for respiratory pathologies |
topic | Original Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3137769/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21785637 http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/ecam/neq064 |
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