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In recent years, mobile entertainment devices have become increasingly widely available. We wished to investigate if using such an instrument could improve the well-being of our young patients who were undergoing cryotherapy. In young children, fear, distress, and anxiety are important causes of morbidity. Of note, this was a quality-improvement study rather than an experimental study.
Although 99 sessions of cryotherapy were evaluated, there were 35 individual patients analyzed in 2 groups. The improvement in the primary end point (anxiety score) was marked, much to our surprise. Despite the limited number of subjects, the difference was statistically significant in a convincing manner (P = .005 and P = .03). Almost all the secondary end points showed improvement, suggesting that the intervention conferred benefits. The lack of statistical significance in the secondary end points was probably owing to the small number of subjects in each group.