To determine the cooperativeness of children entertained compared to those not entertained during ultrasound scan.

Abstract

Aim To determine the cooperativeness of children entertained compared to those not entertained during ultrasound scan. Materials and Methods Details of children coming for paediatric ultrasound during office hours from June to August 2018 were captured in this project. Their demographics, whether they were co-operative or un-cooperative, and type of entertainment (parents, television, handphone, toys or milk) received during the ultrasound were recorded. Results Two hundred children were recruited consisting of 107 males and 93 females, ranging from 2 days old to 20 years old. There were 115 Chinese, 46 Malays, and 19 Indians, with the rest of foreign nationality. There were 63 inpatients and 137 outpatients. Twelve children who had more than one scan done and a child with special needs were excluded from analysis. There were 150 children who were entertained with average age of 4 years 10 months (median age of 2 years 7 months) and average scan time of 15.86 minutes (median 12 minutes). Of this group, 54 children (36%) were un-cooperative. There were 37 children who were not entertained with average age of 6 years 9 months (median age 3 years 8 months) and average scan time of 13.16 minutes (median 12 minutes). Of this group, 10 children (27%) were un-cooperative. The difference in co-operativeness between the two groups is statistically significant (chi-squared test p Conclusion Despite being entertained, there is a higher percentage of un-cooperative children in this group.