Results of hospitalized children’s contact with fictional narratives

This research aims to examine the impact on physiological regulation and psychological functions of hospitalizes children exposed to a 30-minute storytelling session through the analysis of biomarkers (oxytocin and cortisol) and pain scales. The textual and compositional characteristics of the narratives, the social condition of the children’s family, and the impact of a storyteller's presence will be analyzed. The study will involve 360 children (boys and girls) aged between 6 and 10 years, with preserved cognitive conditions and without sedation. There will be individual sessions of storytelling, for 30 minutes, led by trained storytellers who will not dramatize the texts but read them with voice modulation while the child looks at the pages of the books. Half of them are hospitalized in public hospitals (SUS) and half in private hospitals, subdivided into six groups of 30 children per hospital. Group A: contact with simple fictional prose narratives; Group B: contact with complex fictional prose narratives; Group C: contact with narrative poems; Group D: contact with non-narrative poems. Each category contains 8 different books. The storyteller will present the books to the child, who will choose the ones to hear. Group E: contact with simple fictional narratives, mediated by an electronic device (tablet) that plays a recording of the storytelling, allowing the child to view the book and follow the turning of the pages without revealing any part of the storyteller's body. This group will also be able to choose among 8 narratives. Group F: engagement in recreational language-related activities without a narrative component, such as riddles and puzzles (control group), mediated by the same storytellers. The selection of children and their assignment to a group will be random. One of the parents will answer to some questions in order to identify the family sociocultural condition. A pain scale will be assessed and saliva will be collected in order to measure oxytocin and cortisol before and after the session. All storytelling sessions will be accompanied by a psychology professional responsible for collecting the children's saliva, gathering family data, applying pain scales, and recording the book choices made by the children. The storytelling will be carried out by volunteers from the association "Viva e Deixe Viver," which has been operating in hospitals for over 24 years and is present in various states in Brazil.