The effectiveness of group story therapy on reducing hopelessness and loneliness of female children in family-like community centers

Study purpose was to examine effectiveness of group story therapy on reducing hopelessness and loneliness of girls living in family-like centers. Method was quasi-experimental and statistical society included all primary school parentless and mal-treated girls living in family-like centers of Mashhad (125 people in 14 centers). 26 persons were chosen by available method among three eligible of these centers and placed randomly into experimental, sham control and control groups and answered Kazdin children hopelessness scale (1983) and Asher children loneliness scale (1984) in pretest, posttest and one month follow up stages. group story therapy therapy was given experimental group in 10 sessions, two sessions per week, each session, 5/1 h was given in 10 sessions, two sessions per week, each session, 1 fifths hours and data were proceeded by repeated measures analysis of variance. Result showed significant differences among hopelessness mean of experimental group and two other groups from pretest to post test but this difference was not significant from post test to follow- up. There was no significant difference among these three groups loneliness mean from pretest to post test and this situation continued from post test to follow-up. It seems that group story therapy can be useful to reduct hopelessness of children living in the family-like centers.