Prevalence of Separation Anxiety in Children and Effect of Cognitive Behavioral Play Therapy on Reducing it

Introduction: The purpose of this study was to investigate the prevalence of separation anxiety in children and evaluating the effectiveness of play-therapy, based on a cognitive behavioral approach on reducing separation anxiety.
Method: 358 children were selected in the first part of the study by multistage random sampling through day care centers of Mashhad City Hall-region 2. In the second part, 30 participants of children diagnosed as having separation anxiety and their parents confirmed their consent were put into test and control groups by random assignment. The assessment tool was CSI4 separation anxiety questionnaire. For the test group, 10 play-therapy sessions were carried out based on a cognitive behavioral approach.
Results: In the first part of the study, 13.97 percent of 358 children were diagnosed as having separation anxiety. In the second part, the results showed that there exists a meaningful difference between post-test scores of children who received the therapeutic program and those of control group and separation anxiety of test group has decreased significantly.
Conclusion: The study shows that the prevalence of separation anxiety among children is considerably high and its treatment is important because of further associated problems such as school refusal. Also After the treatment, a significant decrease in separation anxiety occurred and is maintained in the follow-up and this therapeutic program is recommended with respect to its fascinating material