Results of hospitalized children's contact with fictional narratives

• Grant number: 22/05782-6
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants
• Start date: March 01, 2023
• End date: February 28, 2026
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Literature - Literature Theory
• Principal Investigator: Márcia Azevedo de Abreu
• Grantee: Márcia Azevedo de Abreu
• Host Institution: Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem (IEL). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil
• Associated researchers: José Guilherme de Oliveira Brockington
• Associated scholarship(s): 23/12364-9 - Biomarkers and pain scale in hospitalized children at Hospital das Clínicas da Unicamp, BP.TT; 23/02723-1 - Biomarkers and pain scale in hospitalized children at Hospital das Clínicas da Unicamp, BP.TT

Abstract

A team led by G. Brockington examined the impact of children's contact with fictional narratives on their physiological regulation and psychological functions, through the analysis of biomarkers (oxytocin and cortisol), psycholinguistic associations and pain scales. The results were an increase in oxytocin combined with a decrease in the level of cortisol in saliva after a 30-minute storytelling session. Children also reported less pain and used more positive lexical markers when describing their time in the hospital (Brockington, et al., 2021). All these benefits happened without any consideration of textual characteristics of the narratives presented to children. Children's social insertion was not considered, neither was the presence of a storyteller as a mediator in contact with the narrative. This project builds on that research, putting together professionals from the medical field and from literary studies, to examine possible correlations between the following elements: biomarkers (oxytocin, cortisol, ACTH), pain scales, children's social condition, reception condition of narratives, textual and compositional elements of the stories. (AU)