The Effectiveness of Attachment-based Psycho-Educational Interventions on Reducing the Symptoms of Separation Anxiety Disorder in Preschool Children in Tehran

Separation anxiety disorder is one of the most common emotional disorders in childhood and adolescence and an important risk factor for mental health throughout life. The research aimed to determine the effectiveness of attachment-based psycho-educational interventions in reducing the symptoms of separation anxiety disorder in children and the parenting methods of mothers of affected children.

This research method of this research was semi-experimental with a pre-test, post-test, and follow-up design with a control group. Seven counseling and psychotherapy centers in Tehran, Iran were selected by random cluster method, after the initial screening of children with emotional disorders listed for school age, six mothers of these children were referred from the centers, after the sample drop, and finally, twenty-four of the remaining mothers were randomly assigned to the experimental and control groups. The data was collected using Spirafkin and Gado's Children's Disease Symptoms Questionnaire and the Alabama Parenting Questionnaire.

The results showed that the psycho-educational attachment-based package significantly reduces the symptoms and severity of separation anxiety disorder, and this effect was also significant in the follow-up phase. Furthermore, the mentioned package increased the parenting methods of mothers' involvement as well as positive parenting and significantly reduced poor monitoring/supervision and inconsistency.

The psycho-educational attachment-based training package can be considered an efficient program to improve the parenting practices of mothers and reduce the symptoms of separation anxiety disorder in children.