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Exploring the usefulness of medical clowns in elevating satisfaction and reducing aggressive tendencies in pediatric and adult hospital wards
BACKGROUND: Most existing research on medical clowns in health care services has investigated their usefulness mainly among child health consumers. In this research we examined multiple viewpoints of medical staff, clowns, and health consumers aiming to identify the optimal audience (adult or child...
Autores principales: | , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
BioMed Central
2021
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7789247/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33407400 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12913-020-05987-9 |
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author | Efrat-Triester, Dorit Altman, Daniel Friedmann, Enav Margalit, Dalit Lev-Arai Teodorescu, Kinneret |
author_facet | Efrat-Triester, Dorit Altman, Daniel Friedmann, Enav Margalit, Dalit Lev-Arai Teodorescu, Kinneret |
author_sort | Efrat-Triester, Dorit |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: Most existing research on medical clowns in health care services has investigated their usefulness mainly among child health consumers. In this research we examined multiple viewpoints of medical staff, clowns, and health consumers aiming to identify the optimal audience (adult or child health consumers) for which medical clowns are most useful. We focused on exploring their usefulness in enhancing health consumers’ satisfaction and, in turn, reducing their aggressive tendencies. METHODS: We conducted three studies that examined the placement fit of medical clowns from different points of view: medical staff (Study 1, n = 88), medical clowns (Study 2, n = 20), and health consumers (Study 3, n = 397). The main analyses in Studies 1 and 2 included frequencies and t-tests comparing perceived adult and child satisfaction with clowns’ performance. Study 3 used moderated-mediation PROCESS bootstrapping regression analysis to test the indirect effect of negative affectivity on aggressive tendencies via satisfaction. Exposure to the medical clown moderated this relationship differently for different ages. RESULTS: Studies 1 and 2 show that the majority of medical clowns and medical staff report that the current placement of the medical clowns is in pediatric wards; about half (44% of medical staff, 54% of medical clowns) thought that this placement policy should change. In Study 3, data from health consumers in seven different hospital wards showed that clowns are useful in mitigating the effect of negative affectivity on satisfaction, thereby reducing aggressive tendencies among health consumers under the age of 21.6 years. Surprisingly, medical clowns had the opposite effect on most adults: for health consumers who were exposed to the medical clown and were above the age of 21.6 negative affectivity was related to decreased satisfaction, and an increase in aggressive tendencies was observed. DISCUSSION: Medical clowns are most useful in elevating satisfaction and reducing aggressive tendencies of children. Older adults, on the other hand, exhibit lower satisfaction and higher aggressive tendencies following exposure to the performance of medical clowns. CONCLUSION: Medical clowns should be placed primarily in children’s wards. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12913-020-05987-9. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-7789247 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-77892472021-01-07 Exploring the usefulness of medical clowns in elevating satisfaction and reducing aggressive tendencies in pediatric and adult hospital wards Efrat-Triester, Dorit Altman, Daniel Friedmann, Enav Margalit, Dalit Lev-Arai Teodorescu, Kinneret BMC Health Serv Res Research Article BACKGROUND: Most existing research on medical clowns in health care services has investigated their usefulness mainly among child health consumers. In this research we examined multiple viewpoints of medical staff, clowns, and health consumers aiming to identify the optimal audience (adult or child health consumers) for which medical clowns are most useful. We focused on exploring their usefulness in enhancing health consumers’ satisfaction and, in turn, reducing their aggressive tendencies. METHODS: We conducted three studies that examined the placement fit of medical clowns from different points of view: medical staff (Study 1, n = 88), medical clowns (Study 2, n = 20), and health consumers (Study 3, n = 397). The main analyses in Studies 1 and 2 included frequencies and t-tests comparing perceived adult and child satisfaction with clowns’ performance. Study 3 used moderated-mediation PROCESS bootstrapping regression analysis to test the indirect effect of negative affectivity on aggressive tendencies via satisfaction. Exposure to the medical clown moderated this relationship differently for different ages. RESULTS: Studies 1 and 2 show that the majority of medical clowns and medical staff report that the current placement of the medical clowns is in pediatric wards; about half (44% of medical staff, 54% of medical clowns) thought that this placement policy should change. In Study 3, data from health consumers in seven different hospital wards showed that clowns are useful in mitigating the effect of negative affectivity on satisfaction, thereby reducing aggressive tendencies among health consumers under the age of 21.6 years. Surprisingly, medical clowns had the opposite effect on most adults: for health consumers who were exposed to the medical clown and were above the age of 21.6 negative affectivity was related to decreased satisfaction, and an increase in aggressive tendencies was observed. DISCUSSION: Medical clowns are most useful in elevating satisfaction and reducing aggressive tendencies of children. Older adults, on the other hand, exhibit lower satisfaction and higher aggressive tendencies following exposure to the performance of medical clowns. CONCLUSION: Medical clowns should be placed primarily in children’s wards. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12913-020-05987-9. BioMed Central 2021-01-06 /pmc/articles/PMC7789247/ /pubmed/33407400 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12913-020-05987-9 Text en © The Author(s) 2021 Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Efrat-Triester, Dorit Altman, Daniel Friedmann, Enav Margalit, Dalit Lev-Arai Teodorescu, Kinneret Exploring the usefulness of medical clowns in elevating satisfaction and reducing aggressive tendencies in pediatric and adult hospital wards |
title | Exploring the usefulness of medical clowns in elevating satisfaction and reducing aggressive tendencies in pediatric and adult hospital wards |
title_full | Exploring the usefulness of medical clowns in elevating satisfaction and reducing aggressive tendencies in pediatric and adult hospital wards |
title_fullStr | Exploring the usefulness of medical clowns in elevating satisfaction and reducing aggressive tendencies in pediatric and adult hospital wards |
title_full_unstemmed | Exploring the usefulness of medical clowns in elevating satisfaction and reducing aggressive tendencies in pediatric and adult hospital wards |
title_short | Exploring the usefulness of medical clowns in elevating satisfaction and reducing aggressive tendencies in pediatric and adult hospital wards |
title_sort | exploring the usefulness of medical clowns in elevating satisfaction and reducing aggressive tendencies in pediatric and adult hospital wards |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7789247/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33407400 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12913-020-05987-9 |
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