Abstract:

Objective To investigate the effect of individualized psychological intervention on anxiety of parents of children with hypospadias. Methods Eighty parents of children undergoing surgery for hypospadias in Shanghai Children's Hospital affiliated to Shanghai Jiaotong University between March 2012 and February 2013 were randomly divided into experiment group and control group, with 40 parents in each group. Parents were evaluated with Zung's self-rating anxiety scale (SAS)(20 items) on the first day of hospital admission, and then different psychological interventions were performed. In experiment group, individualized psychological intervention was carried out on the basis of conventional psychological nursing, which guided parents to deal with psychological problems of children with different ages. However, only conventional psychological nursing intervention was conducted in control group. Parents were evaluated again two weeks after psychological intervention, the status of anxiety after intervention was determined in two groups, and the length of hospital stay was assessed. Results Two weeks after psychological intervention, the total scores of anxiety in both groups were significantly lower than those before intervention (P<0.01), and the scores of 11 items in experiment group were significantly lower than those in control group (P<0.05 or P<0.01). The length of hospital stay in experiment group was significantly shorter than that in control group [(11.13±2.85) d vs (12.80±3.99) d, P<0.05]. Conclusion The individualized psychological intervention can effectively reduce the anxiety of parents of children with hypospadias, increase the efficiency of nursing, and improve the outcome of surgery of children.

Key words: hypospadias, parents, individualized psychological intervention, effect evaluation