Comparison of the Effectiveness of Drama Therapy and Music Therapy on Loneliness, Anxiety, and Children with Grief Referred to Ahwaz Clinics

The death of a loved one is one of the most common stressful events. There are certain complexities to accepting it, especially in the case of children. The present study was conducted to compare the effectiveness of Drama Therapy and Music Therapy on loneliness, anxiety, and children with grief referred to Ahvaz clinics.

The present study was a quasi-experimental pretest, posttest with control and follow-up groups. The statistical population of the present study included all children with grief referred to psychological clinics in Ahvaz during the fourth 4 months in 2018 with 93 children. A total of 45 girls and boys aged 9 to 12 years with symptoms of grief of one of the other attachment figures (such as mother or father) were selected and purposefully selected. Then, they were randomly selected by lottery in the drama-therapy, music-therapy and control groups (15 children in each group). Research data were collected using a demographic questionnaire, "Children's Loneliness Scale" and "Multidimensional Anxiety Scale for Children". Content validity and reliability by internal consistency with Cronbach's alpha coefficient was calculated. Then for the subjects of the experimental groups, 12 sessions of 90 minutes of Drama Therapy and 15 sessions of 45 minutes of Music Therapy (two sessions per week for each group) were performed and no intervention was performed for the control group. One month later, the follow-up was performed. The collected data were analyzed in SPSS. 23.

There is a significant difference between the intervention and control groups in the two variables of loneliness and anxiety, both in the post-test stage and in the follow-up stage. Also, there is no significant difference between the two groups of Music Therapy and Drama Therapy in the variables loneliness and anxiety after the test and follow-up. Therefore, both intervention groups were effective in reducing loneliness and anxiety in children with grief (P<0.01).

Both Drama Therapy and Music Therapy reduced loneliness and anxiety in children with grief. It is suggested that the above two therapies be used to help the psychological problems of children with grief.