seyedeh shahrzad hejri; shahla pakdaman; saeed ghanbari; seddighe sadat mirzaei
Abstract
Objective: This study aimed to determine the effectiveness of painting therapy in reducing emotional- behavioral problems of children with cancer (internalized problems: anxious-depressed, withdrawn-depressed, somatic complaints; externalized problems: aggressive behavior and rule-breaking behavior).
Method: ...
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Objective: This study aimed to determine the effectiveness of painting therapy in reducing emotional- behavioral problems of children with cancer (internalized problems: anxious-depressed, withdrawn-depressed, somatic complaints; externalized problems: aggressive behavior and rule-breaking behavior).
Method: The research method was quasi-experimental with a pretest-posttest design and control group with follow-up. Using targeted sampling, 40 children (6-12 years old) with cancer, whose score on the Child Behavior Check List (CBCL) was one standard deviation above the mean, was selected and randomly divided into two experiment (n = 20) and control (n = 20) groups, but due to drop in the number of participants, it decreased to 31 (16 experimental group and 15 control group). The painting program was performed on the experimental group in the form of 8 two-hour sessions. To analyze the data, the mixed variance analysis method was used.
Results: The results showed that although the overall score of the internalized and externalized problems was significantly reduced, painting therapy did not affect the somatic complaints (of internalized problems) and the rule-breaking behavior (of externalized problems).
Conclusions: The results showed that painting therapy can be an effective way to reduce the emotional-behavioral problems of children with cancer. Therefore the findings of this study can have preventive clinical applications.
