PLAY Therapy Intervention: Re-Modelling Patient Experience (The PLAYTIME Study)

Study synopsis Objectives * To determine whether delivering a semi-structured play therapy intervention can improve procedure-related anxiety / ability to cope with a procedure / procedure-related pain for children and young people. * To determine whether delivering a semi-structured play therapy intervention can improve patient experience of blood monitoring. Patients * Patients aged 5 - 17 years who are under the care of the rheumatology team. * Patients expected to require at least two blood tests during a 12 week period. Design * Recruitment over 24 weeks with each child in the study for a 12 week period. * 20 patients will receive play therapy intervention as outlined in the play therapy intervention for blood tests. * 20 patients will be the comparator group. They will be offered standard care for blood tests. * All children will be offered local anaesthetic cream for each blood test. Blood tests will be performed by venepuncture unless specifically requested otherwise by patient. * All children will complete outcome measures at baseline, beginning and end of each procedure session and at completion of the study at 16 weeks. Outcome Measures * Procedure-related anxiety visual analogue scale (VAS) score - completed by child * Observer procedure-related anxiety VAS score - completed by parent * Procedure-related coping VAS score - completed by child * Procedure-related pain VAS score - completed by child * Patient experience VAS score - completed by child and parent separately