Using a Humanoid Robot to Distract Children With Chronic Conditions Undergoing Painful Procedures

The aim of this study is to examine the effect of using a humanoid robot during a painful puncture procedure (e.g., portal catheter punction, IV punctures, blood withdrawal, etc.) in children with chronic conditions (e.g., chronic immune deficiency, colitis ulcerosa, metabolic disorders, cystic fibrosis, etc.) on the pain and fear memory of child and parent in comparison to usual care. The use of a humanoid robot has proven to be effective on reducing healthy children's pain and distress towards vaccinations. Still, whether these benefits generalize to chronically ill children, to pain/fear memories and to the parents needs to be examined. The current research proposal is the first one to examine the use of a humanoid robot to distract children with chronic conditions who undergo repeated painful procedures and, compared to usual care, its effectiveness in reducing negative pain and fear experience and reducing negative pain and fear memory biases. Children aged 8-12y with chronic conditions receiving regular treatment by painful puncture procedures, and their parents will be recruited at the University Hospital Brussels and Ghent. Baseline assessments include child's anticipated pain, pain-related fear and self-efficacy by child's self-report and parent proxy report, child's attention control, attention bias, pressure hyperalgesia, energy-balance related behavior, child's and parent's catastrophizing about the child's pain, parental behavioral responses to their child's pain and parent's emotions towards the child's painful procedure. Stratified block randomization will be used to assign the children to the control group (usual care) or intervention group (robot distraction). Immediately after the puncture procedure, experienced pain, pain-related fear, self-efficacy and pain catastrophizing (state) will be assessed again by child and parent, as well as emotions of the parent. One week post-procedure the participants will be contacted by telephone for a short int