Doctors to use ‘medical clowns’ to calm children

Clowns could soon have a profitable sideline in calming children in doctor’s surgeies, after a research team in Tel Aviv found that ‘medical clowns’ were highly effective.

Children undergoing a puncture test - where a needle breaks the skin - had significantly lower level of pain and fear if they were distracted by clowns, the researchers found.

Children who were afraid of clowns were excluded from the test.

The study is the first serious attempt to quantify the effect of so-called ‘medical clowns’, and was conducted by a team led by Professor Amon Goldberg at Tel Aviv University.

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'Our research group is comprised of experienced allergists,' said Prof. Goldberg, 'so we all knew that children, and occasionally their parents, express deep anxiety and fear of the skin tests. We wanted to see what could be done to improve the situation.'

The study involved 91 children, aged two to 17 years, who underwent skin-prick testing.

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A clown from Dream Doctors, an organization that provides Israeli medical centers with medical clowns, accompanied 45 of the children, while 46 kids underwent testing without clowns.

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Professor Goldberg said. 'Our work offers a better method for easing the pain and anxiety induced in children by these tests. Children and parents will definitely benefit from the contribution of medical clowns to stressful medical tests like the skin prick test.'