Effectiveness of pop-it therapeutic play on children's anxiety during inhalation therapy in children's wards

Hospitalized children receive anxiety-triggering medical procedures, such as inhalation therapy. One non-pharmacological intervention that can be provided to reduce children's anxiety is pop-it therapeutic play. This study aimed to measure the effectiveness of pop-it therapeutic play on children's levels of anxiety during inhalation therapy in children's wards. This study used a randomized control trial involving 66 children aged 1-12 years who received inhalation therapy and were treated in the children's ward from three hospitals in North Sulawesi. The respondents were divided into intervention and control groups, with 33 respondents for each group. The samples were selected using simple random sampling. Anxiety level was assessed using the Visual Facial Anxiety Scale. The findings showed that playing pop-it effectively reduced children's anxiety levels during inhalation therapy, with a p value of 0.000 (α < 0.05). Therefore, playing pop-it is the right solution for children who receive inhalation therapy and is recommended as an alternative toy in hospitals. This finding can be applied in children who receive inhalation therapy because it is easy to do, efficient and effective controlling the children's anxiety.