the effect of cognitive- behavior group play therapy on social phobia in 5-11 years old children

aim and background: child social phobia is a common anxiety disorder that there is different intervention psychology treatment for it. the main purpose of this research was to determine the effect of cognitive-behavior group play therapy on social phobia in 5-11 years old children. methods and materials: in this research of quasi experimental, from among of the children who were referred to child psychiatric clinics and who diagnosed by psychiatrist as having social phobia, 30 children were selected as an accessible sample and randomly divided into control and experimental groups. the experimental group received the group play therapy in 6 weekly sessions and the control group which did not receive any intervention. the parent form of sub-scales of social phobia of the child abnormal symptoms inventory (csi-4) was administered to all subjects as the pre, post and follow up tests. findings: the results showed that the difference between mean post test scores of social phobia in the experimental group means post test scores was significant, lower than the control group (p = 0.01). the results of fallow up test was also significant (p < 0. 01), the mean scores of the experimental group was less than that of control group. conclusions: this research show that social phobia in experimental group was than control group, this finding is similar to research in iran and another country. cognitive- behavior group play therapy is effective to reducing children social phobia.