“…Several studies have examined the effects of sandplay on children with cerebral palsy (Wang et al, 2015 ) and on children with separation anxiety (Hamideh & Zohreh, 2015 ), but there is still insufficient research on the effectiveness of sandplay at reducing emotional–behavioural problems in children with chronic diseases in China. Due to the shortage of paediatric psychologists, filling the gap with nursing practitioners has been proposed (Schwartz et al., 2017 ). Therefore, integrating emotional and behavioural treatments into traditional nursing care is a priority.…”