While not everyone is a fan of Jedward, their instantly recognisable hair may prove a good distraction technique for injured children being treated in emergency departments (EDs), a new study suggests.

According to doctors in the paediatric ED of Tallaght Hospital, children are often very distressed when being treated, particularly if they are in pain or are frightened, therefore distraction techniques ‘are an important part of their care'.

They came up with the idea of blowing up a standard hospital glove to make it look like a balloon. A face was drawn on the balloon in an attempt to distract the child.

The doctors were using two different designs on the ‘balloons', but wanted to see which was more effective at distracting children.

The first design was known as the ‘Jedward'. With this, the fingers of the glove formed the distinctive hair of the famous twins. The second design was known as the ‘Mohawk'. With this, the thumb finger represented the nose of the face, while the remaining fingers represented the hair.

The doctors used both types of balloon on 149 children being treated for an injury in the ED. All were aged between two and eight years.

No visual or sound clues were offered with the balloons.

While 13 children were not interested in either balloon, the Jedward proved more popular than the Mohawk among the remaining children. Some 55% of children preferred the Jedward balloon compared to 45% who preferred the Mohawk.

"Most children with acute pain secondary to injury are happy to play with an inflated glove with a face drawn on it. We believe that our distraction tool is of benefit in helping children deal with the psychological effect of being in an emergency department,' the doctors concluded.

Details of these findings are published in the Emergency Medicine Journal.