Impact of touch on children's depression

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of touch on depression in children. To this end, 20 girls and 20 boys aged 12-7 years were selected using cluster sampling from 20 centers under support of well-fare organization of Kerman. The research method is quasi-experimental (pre-test and post-test). After selecting the subjects ,Children's Depression Scale-Parent Questionnaire (CDS-P) by Lang and Tisher (1987) was employed and Children whose marks were over 175 were selected.Then,touch intervention (patting, punching, kissing, embracing, tickling and grooming) on children was done by teachers Daily for 60 minutes. After ten weeks touch intervention, CDS-P was administered again.The results of t test are shown that touch intervention was effective (p= 001) in decreasing the depression among children and in all of the subscale of CDS-P except Miscellaneous P Items. Moreover: repeated measure ANOVA revealed that the interaction effect between touch and care duration in decreasing of depression was found significant.According to the results, it is recommended to use the touch technique to treat and reduce depression in children.