Clown doctors virtualized: hospital professionals’ perception regarding online visits during confinement in Portuguese public hospitals
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Inês Peceguina
Inês Peceguina is a Psychologist and has a PhD in Developmental Psychology. Her main areas of interest and research mainly focus on social relationships, and the contexts where such relationships emerge and develop, in particular, the family, and other close relationships. She is interested in the narratives, the subjective interpretation from the perspective of individuals, and groups, regarding the meaning of their individual and social experiences.
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Iêda Alcântara
Iêda Alcântara has been working and studying about clown doctors’ intervention in hospitals for two decades, in different clown doctors’ organizations. She is interested in child literature, being also a publisher, illustrator and a writer on this type of literature. She is presently the coordinator of the Centre of Studies and Research from Operação Nariz Vermelho Organization; and is part of the jury of the “Caminhos de Leitura Seal” – one of the most recent Portuguese awards in the area of children’s and youth literature.
Anabela C. Santos is presently a Post-doc researcher in Education at Le@d, Distance Education and eLearning Laboratory at the Universidade Aberta Portuguesa. She holds a Degree and Master in Psychomotor Rehabilitation at the Faculdade de Motricidade Humana, Universidade de Lisboa. She is also a Master in Science on Emotions at ISCTE – Instituto Universitário de Lisboa, and a PhD in Education (Universidade de Lisbon) and in School Psychology and Human Development (Universidade de São Paulo). Her main topics of research are focused on social and emotional learning, student engagement, self-regulated learning, resilience, well-being and mental health; developing and performing impact assessments of prevention programmes (universal, selective and indicated interventions) for children and youth as well as developing teachers’ training (both for preservice and in-service teachers).
Flávia Diab has a degree in History, but her career has been dedicated to production for over 20 years, including project development, execution and team coordination. Throughout her career, she has dedicated to several cultural areas, including production of exhibitions, festivals, performing arts, cinema, music and book publishing. Since 2016 until the present date, she has been working in the social sector, as part of the team at Operação Nariz Vermelho – Associação de Apoio à Criança, as Hospital Relation Coordinator. She is responsible for liaising between the association and the hospitals visited by clown doctors. In 2022, she was responsible for producing the show “Compasso de Palhaço”, which toured 16 hospitals in Portugal, in addition to a season at the Centro Cultural de Belém.
Sílvia Carvalho has a degree in Social Education at Escola Superior de Educação, Porto. Since 2014 she has been a member of the Operação Nariz Vermelho organization, working in the areas of Artistic Coordination and Hospital Relations. In 2016/2017 she directed the Production of the project “Hora Extraordinária” collectively created by ONV and Clown Laboratori Porto within the scope of the EEAGrants program Cidadania Activa.
Abstract
Clown doctors’ artistic interventions directed to hospitalized children in the Portuguese public hospitals have been performed over the last 20 years, uninterruptedly. During the Covid-19 pandemic, the doctor clowns’ visits were interrupted, but soon after resumed in some hospitals, by means of visits online. The present study evaluates hospital professionals’ perception (n = 152) regarding clowns’ online visits. Participants were mostly nurses (n = 76), and child educators/teachers (n = 39) working in pediatrics (n = 139). Six months after the beginning of the visits, an online questionnaire was used to collect the data. A mixed-methods approach was used to analyse the data. Results indicate that most hospital professionals have a positive perception of online visits, considering that the quality of performance was preserved, and that children were engaged and benefited from the interactions. Moreover, participants acknowledge the organizations’ ability and promptness in developing an alternative way of visiting the children, even though some stressed that in-person visits are the most desirable format.
About the authors
Inês Peceguina is a Psychologist and has a PhD in Developmental Psychology. Her main areas of interest and research mainly focus on social relationships, and the contexts where such relationships emerge and develop, in particular, the family, and other close relationships. She is interested in the narratives, the subjective interpretation from the perspective of individuals, and groups, regarding the meaning of their individual and social experiences.
Iêda Alcântara has been working and studying about clown doctors’ intervention in hospitals for two decades, in different clown doctors’ organizations. She is interested in child literature, being also a publisher, illustrator and a writer on this type of literature. She is presently the coordinator of the Centre of Studies and Research from Operação Nariz Vermelho Organization; and is part of the jury of the “Caminhos de Leitura Seal” – one of the most recent Portuguese awards in the area of children’s and youth literature.
Anabela C. Santos is presently a Post-doc researcher in Education at Le@d, Distance Education and eLearning Laboratory at the Universidade Aberta Portuguesa. She holds a Degree and Master in Psychomotor Rehabilitation at the Faculdade de Motricidade Humana, Universidade de Lisboa. She is also a Master in Science on Emotions at ISCTE – Instituto Universitário de Lisboa, and a PhD in Education (Universidade de Lisbon) and in School Psychology and Human Development (Universidade de São Paulo). Her main topics of research are focused on social and emotional learning, student engagement, self-regulated learning, resilience, well-being and mental health; developing and performing impact assessments of prevention programmes (universal, selective and indicated interventions) for children and youth as well as developing teachers’ training (both for preservice and in-service teachers).
Flávia Diab has a degree in History, but her career has been dedicated to production for over 20 years, including project development, execution and team coordination. Throughout her career, she has dedicated to several cultural areas, including production of exhibitions, festivals, performing arts, cinema, music and book publishing. Since 2016 until the present date, she has been working in the social sector, as part of the team at Operação Nariz Vermelho – Associação de Apoio à Criança, as Hospital Relation Coordinator. She is responsible for liaising between the association and the hospitals visited by clown doctors. In 2022, she was responsible for producing the show “Compasso de Palhaço”, which toured 16 hospitals in Portugal, in addition to a season at the Centro Cultural de Belém.
Sílvia Carvalho has a degree in Social Education at Escola Superior de Educação, Porto. Since 2014 she has been a member of the Operação Nariz Vermelho organization, working in the areas of Artistic Coordination and Hospital Relations. In 2016/2017 she directed the Production of the project “Hora Extraordinária” collectively created by ONV and Clown Laboratori Porto within the scope of the EEAGrants program Cidadania Activa.
Acknowledgements
The authors acknowledge the great and enthusiastic work from Clown Doctors of Operação Nariz Vermelho for never giving up on their mission: Ana Madureira, Andreas Piper, Basile Victor Pujebet, Fernando Terra, Filipa Mendes, Gilberto Oliveira, Gisela Matos, Inês Mariana Moitas, Jaime Mears, Janela Magalhães, Joana Egypto, João Paulo Reis, Joel de Oliveira, Julieta Rodrigues, Luís Almeida, Margarida Fernandes, Mariana Moreira, Marta Costa, Marta de Carvalho, Miguel Antunes, Pacas, Patrícia Pais, Patrícia Ubeda, Rui Gomes, Tiago Quites. The authors would also like to acknowledge all the support from the health care professionals who accepted and enabled the virtual visits from the following hospitals: Hospital de Gaia – Unidade II, Centro Materno Infantil do Norte, Instituto Português de Oncologia do Porto, Hospital de Braga, Hospital Beatriz Ângelo, Hospital Pediátrico de Coimbra, Centro Hospitalar São João, Hospital de Santa Maria, Hospital de Santa Marta, Hospital de Cascais Dr. José de Almeida, Hospital Garcia de Orta, Hospital Prof. Dr. Fernando Fonseca (Amadora-Sintra), Hospital do Barreiro, Hospital Dona Estefânia. Finally, the project would never be possible without the support from Teleperformance, which donated the tablets; from Cisco, which offered free use of Webex; from NOS, which donated part of the hotspots that ensure the internet for the video calls; and Sam Singh, a local merchant who, through his Avtar Singh store, helped us to create a device that did not exist before to fix the tablets.
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Data sharing and declaration: The dataset analysed during the current study is not publicly available but is available from the corresponding author on request.
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Author contributions: Conceptualization, Methodology, Investigation: F. Diab, S. and Carvalho; Formal analysis: I. Alcântara and A. C. Santos; Writing – original draft preparation: I. Peceguina and A.C. Santos; Review & editing: I. Alcântara and I. Peceguina.
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Conflict of interest statement: The authors are part of the Operação Nariz Vermelho.
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Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Full Length Articles
- “Waiter, there’s a fly in my soup!”: tipping behavior in restaurants as a function of food servers’ humor, opinion conformity, and other-enhancement
- ‘Just kidding?’ – an exploratory audience study into the ways Flemish youth with a minoritized ethnic identity make sense of ethnic humor and the politics of offense
- Sexist jokes don’t appear to increase rape proclivity among men high in hostile sexism: Evidence from two pre-registered direct replications of Thomae and Viki (2013)
- Clown doctors virtualized: hospital professionals’ perception regarding online visits during confinement in Portuguese public hospitals
- Humor style predicts sarcasm use – evidence from Turkish speakers
- What makes Mormons laugh
- The role of humor in social, psychological, and physical well-being
- Book Reviews
- Judith Yaross Lee and John Bird: Seeing Mad: Essays on Mad Magazine’s Humor and Legacy
- Rachel Trousdale: Humor, Empathy, and Community in Twentieth-Century American Poetry
- Conners, Carrie: Laugh Lines: Humor, Genre, and Political Critique in Late Twentieth-Century American Poetry
- Wiggins, Bradley: The Discursive Power of Memes in Digital Culture: Ideology, Semiotics, and Intertextuality
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Full Length Articles
- “Waiter, there’s a fly in my soup!”: tipping behavior in restaurants as a function of food servers’ humor, opinion conformity, and other-enhancement
- ‘Just kidding?’ – an exploratory audience study into the ways Flemish youth with a minoritized ethnic identity make sense of ethnic humor and the politics of offense
- Sexist jokes don’t appear to increase rape proclivity among men high in hostile sexism: Evidence from two pre-registered direct replications of Thomae and Viki (2013)
- Clown doctors virtualized: hospital professionals’ perception regarding online visits during confinement in Portuguese public hospitals
- Humor style predicts sarcasm use – evidence from Turkish speakers
- What makes Mormons laugh
- The role of humor in social, psychological, and physical well-being
- Book Reviews
- Judith Yaross Lee and John Bird: Seeing Mad: Essays on Mad Magazine’s Humor and Legacy
- Rachel Trousdale: Humor, Empathy, and Community in Twentieth-Century American Poetry
- Conners, Carrie: Laugh Lines: Humor, Genre, and Political Critique in Late Twentieth-Century American Poetry
- Wiggins, Bradley: The Discursive Power of Memes in Digital Culture: Ideology, Semiotics, and Intertextuality
