Background  Children need to bandage one or both eyes after ophthalmic surgery, resulting in rising of fear due to being in the dark. The fear of the dark in school-aged children (6-12 years) is more serious than children of other ages. At present, there is a lack of scientific intervention methods for fear of the dark in children.

  Objective  To investigate the effectiveness of adaptive training on fear of the dark in school-aged children postoperatively.

  Methods  From December 2019 to December 2021, school-aged children who underwent extraocular muscle surgery were selected from the Department of Ophthalmology, and they were divided into the control group and the adaptive training group randomly, the control group was given routine preoperative health education and psychological care; while the adaptive training group was given dark environment feeling training, 3-meter round-trip game, and postoperative scene simulation on the day before surgery, and both groups were given normal nursing routine after general anesthesia surgery, including oxygen inhalation for 6h and ECG monitoring to observe vital signs. At last, the incidence and extent of postoperative agitation assessed by the Sedation-Agitation Scale (SAS) at 5 min after surgery, and the heart rate at 10min and 20min postoperative in both groups were observed.

  Results  A total of 106 children were enrolled, and 53 children were assigned to the control group, including 26 males and 27 females, aged 7-12 (9.16 ± 2.12) years; 53 cases in adaptive training group, including 24 males and 29 females, aged 6-11 (8.91 ± 2.14) years. There was no significant difference in age, gender and other general conditions between the two groups (P>0.05). There was no significant difference in the incidence of agitation before operation. After operation, the incidence of agitation in the control group was 83.01%, and it was 28.30% in the adaptive training group, with statistically significant difference (P＜0.05). The heart rate at 10min and 20min in the control group were (101.6 ± 10.8/min vs 92.8 ± 10.3/min) and (95.5 ± 9.4/min vs 83.3 ± 9.3/min) respectively, which were higher than those in the adaptive training group, and the differences between the two groups were statistically significant (P＜0.05, respectively).

  Conclusion  Adaptive training can significantly alleviate the fear of the dark postoperatively in school-aged children, and it is very acceptable for children.