The effectiveness of combination therapy of acceptance and commitment therapy and theraplay on severity of symptoms and function of children with obsessive-compulsive disorder

Several studies have examined the effectiveness of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy on the severity of obsessive-compulsive disorder symptoms. But research that examines the effectiveness of this treatment in combination with Theraplay on the symptoms and function of children with obsessive-compulsive disorder has been neglected.

The present study investigates the effectiveness of combination therapy of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and Theraplay on the symptoms and Function of children with obsessive-compulsive disorder.

This was a quasi-experimental study with pre-test and post-test with 3-month follow-up and control group. The statistical population of the study included all children with obsessive-compulsive disorder aged 8 to 12 years in Esfahan in 2019, along with their mothers at the time of the study, of which 20 children with their parents, after an authentic psychiatrist or psychologist diagnosed them with obsessive-compulsive disorder and they obtained at least a score of 14 on the Children's Yale-Brown OC Scale, were selected based on Purposive sampling method and randomly assigned into the experimental and control groups. The experimental group received the combination therapy of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and Theraplay for 10 sessions of individual counseling, but the control group did not receive any intervention. Instruments used in the study included Children's Yale-Brown OC Scale(CY-BOCS), Child Obsessive Compulsive Impact Scale – Revised(COIS-R / P) and Marschak Interaction Method Behavior Rating System.

To analyze the findings, inferential statistics methods of analysis of repeated measures were used. The findings of this study confirmed the effect of combination therapy of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and Theraplay on reducing the symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder, improvement overall performance and the improvement of academic, social, family and daily livng skills performance(P<0/05).

The combination therapy of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and Theraplay is effective to reduce symptoms and improve Function in children with obsessive-compulsive disorder