The Effect of Laughter Yoga on Preoperative Anxiety in Pediatric Patients

May 18, 2026 updated by: Saglik Bilimleri Universitesi

The Effect of Laughter Yoga on Preoperative Anxiety in Pediatric Patients: A Randomized Controlled Study

The effect of laughter yoga on a child's pre-operative anxiety.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

Children and their parents who meet the inclusion criteria will be informed about the study content; written informed consent will be obtained from the parents and verbal assent from the children prior to participation. The study will be conducted with two separate groups: a control group receiving routine preoperative care and an intervention group practicing laughter yoga. To ensure balance, groups will be formed using day randomization while considering age criteria. Prior to the study, the researcher completed a laughter yoga course and obtained an "Internationally Accredited Laughter Yoga Leadership Training" certificate. The nurse researcher administering the pre-tests and post-tests will be blinded to whether laughter yoga was applied to the groups. In the intervention group, children brought to the preoperative area one hour early (per routine) will receive a pre-test from the blinded nurse researcher, followed by a 30-minute laughter yoga session led by the researcher, and a post-test administered approximately 10 minutes thereafter. For the control group receiving routine care, the pre-test will be administered, and the post-test will be performed after a 30-minute waiting period.Surgical anxiety disorder was categorized according to the modified Yale Preoperative Anxiety Scale (m-YPAS )performance score out of 40, as stated in the report prepared by Hatipoğlu et al. (2019); scores above 40 were considered high anxiety, and scores below 40 were considered low anxiety. The minimum score that can be obtained is 22.9 and the maximum score is 100.

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

100

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

  • Child

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Speaking Turkish
  • Having American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) I and II certifications
  • Planned as an elective operation
  • Children aged 5-12 undergoing their first surgery
  • Having no chronic illnesses

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Children with accompanying chronic illnesses and/or psychological disorders
  • Children with health problems that prevent them from doing laughter yoga (urinary incontinence, persistent cough, etc.)
  • Parents and children who refuse to participate in the study.

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Prevention
  • Allocation: Randomized
  • Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
  • Masking: Double

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Intervention Group
The group receiving laughter therapy.
Other: laughter therapy
Within the scope of the study, children in the intervention group-who are brought to the preoperative area one hour in advance as per routine practice-will be administered a pre-test by a blinded nurse researcher, followed by a laughter yoga session conducted by the researcher lasting approximately 30 minutes. To allow the physiological and psychological effects of the intervention to stabilize, the post-test will be administered 10 minutes after the session. In the control group receiving routine care without laughter yoga, the pre-test will be administered, and a post-test will be performed after a 40-minute waiting period to ensure consistency in the time criteria between the two groups.
No Intervention: Control Group
The group receiving routine services.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
pre-operative anxiety
Time Frame: First arrival at the preoperative area, 10 minutes after laughter yoga.
modified Yale Preoperative Anxiety Scale (mYPAS scale) will be applied.
First arrival at the preoperative area, 10 minutes after laughter yoga.

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

Saglik Bilimleri Universitesi

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start (Actual)

January 1, 2026

Primary Completion (Actual)

February 28, 2026

Study Completion (Actual)

February 28, 2026

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

April 13, 2026

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

May 5, 2026

First Posted (Actual)

May 11, 2026

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

May 22, 2026

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

May 18, 2026

Last Verified

October 1, 2025

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • 2025-515

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

NO

IPD Plan Description

Data are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

No

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

No

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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