Children in this group will not receive a link to view an informational animated prior to their surgery date

Children in this group will receive a link to view an informational animated video 3 nights prior to their surgery date.

Participants randomized to the intervention group will receive a link to a short survey gauging parent anxiety levels three days prior to their childs surgery date. If randomly assigned to watch the informative animated video, the survey will be followed by a link to a video which families are free to watch prior to your child's surgery date. Once participants and there family watch the video, they will be asked to rate the quality of the video on a scale of 0 (very bad) to 10 (excellent). Responses to this question will be used to confirm that participants watched the video to the end.

The mYPAS is a validated observational measure to assess the behaviour of children of all ages preoperatively and consists of 27 items divided into five domains (activity, emotional status, arousal state, vocalization, and use of parents).24,27,28 The mYPAS scores range from 22 to 100, with higher values indicating greater anxiety. The mYPAS is considered the gold-standard for observational preoperative anxiety assessment in paediatric patients.24,27-30

The STAI, which consists of two 20-item subscales measures is self-administered on a four-point scale for each item. The scores for each of the subscales range from a minimum of 20 to a maximum of 80, the higher scores suggest the greater psychological anxiety. The tool was designed to differentiate between the temporary condition of "state anxiety" in response to an acute event and the more general and long-standing quality of "trait anxiety" entrenched in the individual's personality. This tool has been validated in a variety of clinical settings including parental anxiety prior to a child's surgery.26