Animals and Monsters: The Favorite Books of Hospitalized Children

• Grant number: 24/05123-8
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: August 01, 2024
• Status: Discontinued
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Literature - Literature Theory
• Principal Investigator: Márcia Azevedo de Abreu
• Grantee: Beatriz Levanteze de Burgos Machado
• Host Institution: Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem (IEL). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil
• Associated scholarship(s): 24/21725-8 - The favorite books of hospitalized children, BE.EP.IC

Abstract

The present project is the result of the collective research entitled "Physiological Effects of Storytelling on Hospitalized Children," which has as its main researchers Márcia Abreu (IEL - Unicamp) and Guilherme Brockington (IDor) and is funded by Fapesp (process number 2022/05782-6). The research, which integrates professionals from the medical field and Literary Studies, seeks to investigate the impacts of fictional narratives on the psychological functions and physiological regulation of hospitalized children through the analysis of biomarkers (oxytocin and cortisol), psycholinguistic associations, pain scales, as well as the possible correlations between these factors and the socioeconomic and cultural condition of the children, the reception condition of the narratives, and the textual and compositional elements of the stories.It is already known that contact with narratives yields positive results for the overall well-being of hospitalized children. However, there is a lack of studies examining their interest in books and texts, which possibly hinders the achievement of ideal results in the work of organizations that bring storytellers to hospitals and compromises advances in improving the quality of pediatric hospitalization. The scarcity of research also represents a need for the children's publishing market, which could benefit from knowing the elements that most attract children. Thus, this project aims to investigate the interest of hospitalized children in the books presented to them, seeking to find evidence of their preferences. The indicators of the preferences of 180 children (90 boys and 90 girls), aged between 6 and 10 years, hospitalized at the Hospital das Clínicas da Unicamp - HC, will be analyzed, considering the reception conditions of the narratives, the socioeconomic and cultural characteristics of the children's families, and the textual and compositional elements of the stories that possibly affect the mobilization of the children's interest.