Nurses need to provide parents with support and education to facilitate their roles and improve their child's postoperative pain management.

Therapeutic play intervention is effective in reducing negative emotional manifestations before anaesthesia induction and in reducing postoperative pain in children undergoing inpatient elective surgery. These results suggest that it is useful to give children with therapeutic play intervention prior to inpatient elective surgery.

Health professionals need to provide more information to equip parents with knowledge and skills regarding paediatric postoperative pain management.

Therapeutic play intervention had no significant effect on parents' perioperative anxiety. Parents' and their children's perioperative anxiety are correlated. Parents perceived the intervention as helpful preparation for themselves and for their children undergoing elective surgery.

This study has been registered with BioMed Central Ltd. (Registration No.: ISRCTN24910957).