Comparison of the effectiveness of play therapy and laughter therapy in Catarria (laughter yoga) on generalized anxiety in children aged 6-12 years

Introduction: Anxiety in children is diagnosed late due to lack of cognitive development and affects on social, educational and emotional functions, and if left untreated, it affects on other stages of life. Aim: The main purpose of this study was to compare the effectiveness of play therapy and laughter therapy on children anxiety. Method: The present study was a quasi-experimental study with a pre-test-post-test design with a control group. The statistical population of the study were anxious children aged 6 to 12 years old on 2020 in Shahrood who have referred to psychological and psychiatrical clinics and received a diagnosis of generalized anxiety. 45 people were selected as a sample and were divided into three groups of play therapy, laughter therapy and control. The research tool was the Spence Child Anxiety Scale (SCAS). The collected data were analyzed using SPSS software version 22 and analysis of variance and Scheffe post hoc test were used. Results: The results of generalized anxiety scores variance analysis showed that there was a significant difference between the three groups at a significant level of 0.01. (F=16.70). Scheffe post hoc test showed that there was no significant difference in reducing anxiety between play therapy and laughter therapy, while there was a significant difference between the control group with laughter therapy (14.13) and also with play therapy (18.40) at a significant level of 0.001. In other words, laughter therapy and play therapy reduced anxiety in the experimental groups, but no change in the level of anxiety was observed in the control group. Conclusion: Therefore, it can be concluded that play therapy and laughter therapy reducing generalized anxiety in children, but there is not difference between the effectiveness of the two therapies.