Doctor's Orders: Play More

Hello everyone! 

I had the pleasure of continuing my clinical experience at the Lewanika General Hospital's Children Ward. As I mentioned previously in my last blog post, this ward is filled with very sick children ranging from a month up to 16 years of age. I have seen an array of illnesses such as malaria, pneumonia, HIV, severe malnutrition, burns, various surgical patients and the list goes on! Needless to say I have been working with children that I normally would not have the opportunity to work with in Canada; however, nursing them has not been my primary focus. Playing with them has.
Now you may ask yourself, "Why would playing with these sick kids be helpful?" And the answer to that question is very simple: playing helps with healing. At this point you are probably questioning or wondering how playing with toy cars, or bubbles or reading can help a child heal from a nasty illness. And that has been a similar feeling I have noticed when I have tried to implement play therapy on the ward. It is not that the staff have been resistant to this idea, but with the high demands of children, countless procedures and other tasks tends to place play therapy near the bottom of priorities. However, after researching about the benefits of play therapy in hospitalized pediatric patients, the evidence demonstrates the greater need to prioritize play time in hospitals. The hospital is an unfamiliar environment and can be a scary place for anyone especially for kids, because it can cause stress, anxiety or feelings of discomfort. As such, playing is an effective tool to help children overcome stress. Furthermore, due to the uncomfortable and painful procedures that accompany a hospital visit, there are several studies that suggest that playing can decrease pain post operatively, alleviate pain during dressing changes or IV starts. The research can go on and on, but I am pleased to report that my attempts to display the evidence and practice play therapy on the ward has proven to be successful. The nurses have asked me to come with them prior to starting an IV because they know I can help distract the child through play. Over the past week the other nursing students and I have attempted various methods of assisting a little girl during her burn dressing changes through reading, asking her math equations and singing (the same 2 songs over again and over again and very poorly I might add). Even though every procedure may still inflict pain or discomfort causing the children to cry and scream, I have noticed that they do not cry as much or as long compared to not playing with them at all. And not only is playing helpful for a child's overall cognitive growth and development, it also is a way for nurses or other healthcare professionals to help build better relationships with their patients and families. Because I know I would rather have a nurse or doctor blow bubbles with me before they listen to my bowel sounds with a cold, funny looking stethoscope. I feel very honoured to be a part of this project, and I will continue to update about the progress or obstacles that may take place with trying to implement play therapy more on the unit. I also want to highlight how positive and receptive the staff members have been to incorporating play therapy, and to note that they still play with the patients as often as they can. All in all I know there is a lot that still needs to be done in order to incorporate play therapy more heavily on the unit, however, through further education for staff and family members, modelling play during rounds, finding time to schedule more formal play therapy sessions and getting a new toy cabinet will hopefully be the pieces needed to solve the puzzle of play therapy.

Thanks for reading, and remember to take some time and go play!

-Nikki

The educational poster I created about the research into play therapy