The effectiveness of storytelling on the social anxiety in male elementary school students

Social anxiety disorder is one of the most common anxiety disorders in childhood. This research has been conducted with the aim of investigating the effectiveness of storytelling on social anxiety in male elementary school students with the action research approach. The present study was a semi-experimental study with the pretest-posttest and a control group. The statistical population of the present study consisted of all male students in the primary school of Jafarabad district of Qom province in the academic year of 2018-2019. 18 students were selected as the sample using the purposeful sampling method and randomly assigned to two experimental and control groups. Then students in the experimental groups participated in 6 one-hour sessions of group intervention, whereas those in the control group received no intervention. data were collected using the Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale  for Children and Adolescents) LSAS-CA). The results of the one-way analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) showed that storytelling improves social anxiety in male elementary school students (P> 0/05). The study findings suggest that storytelling was effective in decreasing the social anxiety in male elementary school students and, therefore, it can be used as a psychological intervention.