Prevention experience in pediatric mental health: surgical pychoprophylaxis in patients undergoing scoliosis surgery

This article presents a trial scheme of surgical psychoprophylaxis in the Scoliosis Unit of the Traumatology department at “Doctor Luis Calvo Mackenna childrens” Hospital. This project arises from The surgical psychoprophylaxis is to an area within Health Psychology that aims to support the patient that will undergo surgery, by performing a brief preventive psychotherapeutic intervention that helps him/her to handle possible emotions, attitudes and behaviors that may appear as a result of the surgical experience. The intervention had three stages: (a) Initial interview and anxiety assessment (b) intra- hospital intervention (c) post surgical control. In each stage mood level was measured as well as activity level, sleep quality and feeding behavior quality. The results suggest that, if patients have adequate knowledge of the process they are going to face their feeling of control over the situation would increase and thus reduce preoperative anxiety. Nevertheless, informing is not enough but it is also necessary to adapt the delivery of information to each patient’s characteristics, for this would be the main factor that would allow changes in preoperative anxiety levels.