separation anxiety and its related factors among preschool children in northern iran from the parents’ point of view

Introduction: separation anxiety is a normal development phase in children aged 1-3 years, indicating a healthy maturation of cognition. however, its persistence disrupts the child’s daily life and can lead to anxiety disorder.objective: this study aims to determine the level of separation anxiety and its related factors among preschool children in northern iran from the parent’s point of view.materials and methods: in this cross-sectional study, 567 mothers who had enrolled their children aged 3-6 years in selected preschools in rasht, iran, were selected using a multi-stage cluster sampling method. a demographic form and the separation anxiety assessment scale-parent version (saas-p) were used to collect data. mann-whitney u test, kruskal-wallis test, friedman’s test, and multiple regression analysis were used to analyze the data. p<0.05 was considered statistically significant. results: most of the mothers were older than 30 years (72.84%) and housewives (76.13%) with a bachelor’s degree (66.01%). based on findings of multiple linear regression analysis, parent’s quarrels at home (β=5.203, 95% ci; 3.653%, 6.753%, p=0.001), child’s history of hospitalization (β=4.174, 95% ci; 1.528%, 6.820%, p=0.002), playing computer games (β=3.282, 95% ci; 0.647%, 5.918%, p=0.015), premature birth (β=3.797, 95% ci; 0.214%, 7.379%, p=0.038) and mother’s continuing education (β=2.183, 95% ci; 0.123%, 4.243%, p=0.038) were the most important factors effective in increasing separation anxiety (r2 =0.03). conclusion: separation anxiety in iranian preschool children can be affected by some socio-demographic characteristics of children and their parents and the children’s living environment.