# An Innovative Tailored Intervention for Improving Children's Postoperative Recovery

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-IRVINE · 2020 · $611,191

## Abstract

Abstract
Every year about 3 million children in the United States experience significant anxiety prior to surgery and pain
following surgery. Not only are these high levels of pain and anxiety emotionally traumatic to the child and
family, but also recent data indicate that high levels of anxiety and pain will lead to impaired psychological and
clinical recovery following the surgery. Over the past 2 decades, a number of hospital-based interventions have
been shown to be effective in the treatment of perioperative anxiety and pain. Unfortunately, use of these
interventions has decreased significantly over the past decade, most likely due to both the dramatic shift
toward low-cost outpatient surgery and other cost-containment efforts. The recent healthcare reform and poor
financial performance by hospitals over the past few years have further accelerated this process. The growing
emphasis on health technology provides an opportunity to transform preparation and management of surgery
with the use of mobile-based, tailored interventions.
Previously, the NICHD awarded the PI of this application a 2-year grant to focus on the development of a web-
based tailored intervention (WebTIPS) directed at children age 2-7 years who are undergoing outpatient
surgery and their family as well as the involved healthcare providers. To date, the PI has developed the
intervention and has demonstrated through a formative evaluation process high usability and likeability of the
intervention. The PI also conducted a feasibility RCT and demonstrated, using a usual care control group, that
WebTIPS is effective in reduction of preoperative anxiety and postoperative emergence delirium. The purpose
of this R01 application is to examine the efficacy of WebTIPS in a large scale clinical trial using an attention
control RCT design and validated 30-days outcome measures that are framed within the recently introduced
conceptual framework of the “Triple Aim”. This framework calls for new interventions to be evaluated within the
context of: better clinical outcomes, better patient satisfaction and lower resource utilization. We submit that
WebTIPS has the potential to transform current perioperative care of millions of children and their families with
an enhanced perioperative journey.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9821685
- **Project number:** 5R01HD091286-03
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-IRVINE
- **Principal Investigator:** Zeev Kain
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $611,191
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2017-12-12 → 2022-11-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9821685

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9821685, An Innovative Tailored Intervention for Improving Children's Postoperative Recovery (5R01HD091286-03). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9821685. Licensed CC0.

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