Effect of Group Play Therapy on Reducing Anxiety among Palestinian Children with Cancer
Date
2020-06-13
Authors
Khaled Yousef Abdalghani Melad
خالد يوسف عبدالغني ميلاد
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Al-Quds University
جامعة القدس
جامعة القدس
Abstract
This study aimed to investigate the effect of group play therapy program in reducing anxiety among Palestinian children with cancer.
According to the purpose of the study, the researcher implemented group play therapy program based on cognitive behavioral theory (Coping Cat Program) with a group of 10 children with cancer aged 9-12 years in Gaza strip, suffering from anxiety, which is a significant psychological sequel of cancer. The sampling process was convenient in which 20 children diagnosed with cancer and have anxiety were selected and randomly assigned into intervention and control group (10 children in each group). The intervention group received 12 group play therapy session twice a week and were followed up after 1 month.
The analysis used to measure the effectiveness was through the paired samples t- test to evaluate the difference between the mean of pre and post levels of anxiety among children in the intervention group. Results show that there is a significant difference between the mean of pre and post levels of anxiety, where the mean is reduced from 20.60 scores in the pre level of anxiety to 12.50 scores in the post level of anxiety, with an effect size by using the Cohen's d=10.97, which indicates a very large effect of the intervention. Furthermore, there is a significant difference between the mean of pre and follow up levels of anxiety at 0.05 level of significance, where the mean is reduced from 20.60 scores in the pre level of anxiety to 12.50 scores in the follow up level of anxiety, and the effect size by using the Cohen's d=6.787, indicates a very large effect of the intervention.