719 Child Life Specialists in the Treatment of Acute Pediatric Burns: A Systematic Review
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract Introduction Children undergoing acute burn care may experience pain and anxiety affecting their ability to tolerate wound care procedures. Non-pharmacological support, including Child Life Specialists (CLS), may compliment pharmacological treatments to reduce pain and anxiety. CLS support is particularly relevant in pediatric burn care; however, there is a paucity of literature on the impact of CLS interventions for pediatric burn care. This review aims to synthesize the current understanding of CLS in pediatric burn care. Methods A systematic review of peer reviewed databases (Embase, CINAHL, MEDLINE, Scopus) and gray literature (Google Scholar, Proquest, Papers First) was conducted up until 28 April 2023. Search terms included ‘burn care’ and ‘child life specialist*.’ Included studies focused on acute burn care and patient centered outcomes as primary outcomes, and non-clinical studies, such as reviews, were excluded. The protocol was published on PROSPERO, and PRISMA guidelines were followed. Data on study type, burn characteristics, pain, and anxiety were extracted and analyzed descriptively. Results Seventy-one unique studies were found. Five publications (three peer reviewed articles and two conference abstracts) were included. Across the five included publications (n=226) patient median/mean age ranged from 2.2 years to 7.8 years old. Two studies had a control group (n=121). There was incomplete reporting of burn characteristics. Mean/median TBSA ranged from 0.5% to 9.17%, with the upper extremity the most frequently reported location (up to 66.7%). CLS interventions included inpatient and outpatient settings. Three studies reported pharmacological analgesia and CLS during burn care. CLS interventions included distraction with electronics and/or toys (4/5), music (1/5), and directed play (1/5). Patient and parent perceptions of pain and anxiety were collected via validated measures. For the two studies with control groups, CLS interventions were associated with a reduction in pain. There was no statistically significant reduction in anxiety. Conclusions This systematic review identified few published studies on the effect of CLS interventions in pediatric burn care, with heterogeneity in patient population and outcome measures. CLS interventions were associated with reduced pain in children undergoing acute burn care. Although we did not find a statistically significant reduction in anxiety, authors reported insufficient statistical power. Applicability of Research to Practice Preliminary research supports the role of CLS interventions in reducing pain in pediatric burn care. Higher powered studies examining the role of CLS in pediatric burn care are needed to further elucidate the effect of CLS on pain and anxiety. We hope these findings stimulate further research to provide the evidence needed to fund CLS as a permanent member of multidisciplinary pediatric burn care teams.
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.007 | 0.029 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.006 | 0.005 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.008 | 0.010 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.006 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".