Effectiveness of Group Play Therapy in Generalized Anxiety Disorder of Children

Objective: anxiety is one of the most common psychiatric disorders and almost 30% of the primary school children are affected by various kinds of it. group play therapy has been reported to be a useful component of treatment of generalized anxiety disorder (gad). the goal of this research was to determine the efficacy of this treatment in children with gad. methods: in this quasi-experimental study, 30 youths with gad aged between 5 and 11 referred from isfahan child psychiatric clinics were randomly assigned to two groups (15 patients in each group). parents’ form of csi-4 questionnaire, gad subscale, was used to diagnose the problem of these children with the help of a child psychiatrist. case group got 1-hour weekly sessions for three months while no intervention was done for control group (waiting list). analysis of covariance was used to compare two groups. results: analysis of covariance showed that group play therapy reduces gad symptoms in posttest stage meaningfully (p=0.02). it also reduces gad symptoms in follow up significantly (p<0.0001). conclusion: the results of this study shows that group play therapy can be an effective method for reducing gad symptoms in posttest and follow up stage.