Young (3–5 year-old) children’s ways of engagement in care procedures involving venepuncture

Abstract

A fear of medical examination and of pain in care procedures is common among children. Young children are particularly sensitive to the way a procedure is carried out. The children will engage and act in the way they understand the situation and what is meaningful for them, which will depend on their experiences, interests and motivation. This study describes the qualitative differences in the complexity of how young children, aged 3–5 years, demonstrated the way they engaged in care procedures involving venepuncture. Video observation captured the young children as social actors in the procedure, and interpretive descriptive analysis was used to seek an understanding of the children’s demonstrated expressions and actions. The identified ways of engagement among the children were as follows: watchful engagement, curious engagement and adaptive engagement, as well as avoidance, forced engagement and resigned engagement. The children could fluctuate between the different ways of engagement during the course of the procedure. The results call attention to the sensitivity and responsiveness shown by the adults, nurses and parents in guiding the young children’s engagement and their ability to become integrated and act through active participation in a sometimes frightening care procedure.