Effectiveness of Acceptance & Commitment Therapy on School Phobia in Children with Type 1 Diabetes

Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) is one of the third wave behavioral therapies in the field of in the treatment of anxiety disorders. The purpose of present study was to investigate the effectiveness of acceptance and commitment therapy on school phobia in children with type 1 diabetes.
This was a semi-experimental study, including pretest-posttest and follow up with the control group. The participants of the study were all girls aged 8-12 years old with type 1 diabetes referred to Najafabad town in 2014-2015. Instruments used in this study was “screen for child anxiety related disorders”(SCARED). Childeren filled measure of anxiety, and among them, 24 childern whom were suffering with school phobia were selected and then assigned randomly into two experimental and control groups (n1=n2=12). For subjects in the experimental group, 8 sessions of acceptance and commitment therapy, each lasting 120 minutes, were offered and control subjects received no therapy in this while. Six month later follow up was executed.
Data were analyzed using analysis of covariance method (ANCOVA). Results indicated that acceptance and commitment therapy reduced school phobia in the students with type 1 diabetes and it showed a persistent recovery on symptoms after six months of follow up.
After all, the results of the current study showed that acceptance and commitment therapy can be used for reducing school phobia.