Effectiveness of Play Therapy on Anxiety among Hospitalized Preschool Children

Back ground of the study: Anxiety disorders are more common in preschoolers. They cause many problems in later life. Anxiety disorder significantly affects the learning, cognitive pattern and memory status. Play helps to relieve anxiety of the child. The aim of the study is to evaluate the effectiveness of play therapy on anxiety among hospitalized preschool children in selected hospitals at Kanyakumari district. Material and Methods: The design adopted was quasi experimental pre test and post test control design. The convenient sampling technique was used to select the samples. The adopted conceptual framework for this study was Imogeine King’s Goal Attainment Theory. The tool used for data collection procedures was modified Spence children anxiety scale. Two hours of play therapy was provided for 3 days. Results : In the pre test most of the preschool children 60% in the experimental group had severe anxiety and in control group 53.3% of them had severe anxiety. After play therapy only 43.3% of preschoolers had mild anxiety and 40% had moderate anxiety in experimental group. There was a significant reduction in mean post test level of anxiety (M D= 33.2, t = 21.8, p<0.05) of the experimental group. The mean post test anxiety score in the experimental group was 38.0 lesser than that of the control group 69.7 (MD=0.7, t = 0.4, p<0.05). Conclusion : Play therapy was found to be cheap, non-invasive and non-pharmacological management used to reduce anxiety among hospitalized preschool children.