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Review
. 2025 Jul-Aug;30(4):427-437.
doi: 10.4103/jiaps.jiaps_276_24. Epub 2025 Jul 4.

Easing Parental Worries: A Systematic Review and Network Meta-analysis on Preoperative Education Methods for Reducing Anxiety in Parents of Children Undergoing Surgery

Saundarya Priyadarshini  1 , Sandeep Agarwala  1 , Harsh Priya  2 , Vishesh Jain  1 , Prabudh Goel  1 , Anjan Dhua  1 , Devendra Kumar Yadav  1
Affiliations
Review

Easing Parental Worries: A Systematic Review and Network Meta-analysis on Preoperative Education Methods for Reducing Anxiety in Parents of Children Undergoing Surgery

Saundarya Priyadarshini et al. J Indian Assoc Pediatr Surg. 2025 Jul-Aug.

Abstract

Parental anxiety during the time leading up to a child's surgery is a major concern. One approach that's gained attention for helping ease this stress is preoperative education, but there's still no clear agreement on which type of educational method works best. This review looked into a range of educational strategies to find out which ones are most effective at lowering anxiety in parents. Between January and March 2024, researchers conducted an extensive search across databases like PubMed, EMBASE, Web of Science, and Google Scholar. They focused on studies that evaluated preoperative education for parents, specifically targeting those that measured parental anxiety using validated tools. From this search, 23 studies were included in the final review, and 19 of them, involving nearly 2,000 participants, were analyzed in a network meta-analysis. The interventions examined varied and included things like videos, web-based platforms, printed booklets, multimedia content, and educational games. When all the data were compared, web-based education stood out as the most effective, with a significant reduction in anxiety levels (SMD = -1.40). Video-based approaches also helped, though to a lesser extent (SMD = -0.42). On the other hand, booklets and game-based education didn't seem to have as strong an impact. In short, web-based educational tools appear to be the best option for helping parents manage the stress of their child's upcoming surgery. These findings could help hospitals and surgical teams choose the most effective ways to prepare and support families during this challenging time.

Keywords: Anxiety; preoperative education; video-based education; web-based education.

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Conflict of interest statement

There are no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
PRISMA flow chart for all studies
Figure 2
Figure 2
Network plot; the size of nodes representing the interventions in network plots is proportional to the number of participants and width of the line is proptional to the number of trials. Studies where mean or standard deviation were not given were excluded from the analysis
Figure 3
Figure 3
Risk of bias using ROB2.0 for individual studies
Figure 4
Figure 4
Surface under the cumulative ranking curve (SUCRA) plot
Figure 5
Figure 5
Forest plot based on group for individual studies
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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