[Psychological aspects of the preparation and performance of endoscopies in children and adolescents]. / Psychische Aspekte bei der Vorbereitung und Durchführung von Endoskopien bei Kindern und Jugendlichen.

Individual observations lead to the realisation that during endoscopy children may develop such a degree of seemingly unexplainable anxiety that the performance of the examination is considerably prejudiced. We therefore examined 39 children systematically, evaluating them according to fearsome products of their imagination on the one hand and real or warranted anxiety on the other. Adjusted to age the children were tested using drawings, projectional tests and role-playing in addition to interviewing, sometimes of their parents as well. The most prominent expressions of anxiety in conjunction with endoscopy were fear of suffocation; fear of damage to internal organs and, in girls, fear of lesions to a "baby inside". In adolescents problems with prudery became evident. On the basis of our experience we developed a systematic model of psychological preparation for endoscopic examinations.