Comparing the Effectiveness of Play Therapy and Problem Solving Training on Responsibility, Distress Tolerance and Adjustment of 5-7-Year-Old Children

Abstract

Purpose: There are many intervention methods to improve children's psychological characteristics, which in this study attempt to compare the two methods of play therapy and problem solving training. As a result, the aim of this study was to comparing the effectiveness of play therapy and problem solving training on responsibility, distress tolerance and adjustment of 5-7-year-old children.Methodology: This study was a semi-experimental with a pretest, posttest and two-month follow-up design with experimental and control groups. The research population was 5-7-year-old children who referred to counseling and psychological services centers and clinics of Tehran city in 2021 year. Among the members of the population, 45 people were selected by available sampling method and replaced by simple random with the help of lottery in three equal groups including play therapy, problem solving training and control groups. The first experimental group trained 10 sessions with the play therapy method and the second experimental group trained 10 sessions with the problem solving training method and the control group during this period did not receive any training. The data were collected with the California responsibility inventory (Gough, 1951), distress tolerance scale (Simons and Gaher, 2005) and adjustment scale (Matson et al, 1983) and were analyzed with the methods of analysis variance with repeated measures and Bonferroni post hoc test in SPSS software.Findings: The findings showed that both methods of play therapy and problem solving training in compared to the control group improved responsibility, distress tolerance and adjustment of 5-7-year-old children and the results remained in the follow-up phase (P<0.001). Also, there was no significant difference between the two methods of play therapy and problem solving training in improving responsibility, distress tolerance and adjustment of 5-7-year-old children in the posttest and follow-up phases (P>0.05).Conclusion: The results of this study indicated the effectiveness of both methods of play therapy and problem solving training on improving responsibility, distress tolerance and adjustment of 5-7-year-old children. Therefore, therapists, psychologists and counselors along with other treatment methods can use both methods of play therapy and problem solving training for their interventions.