The effect storytelling on anxiety psychological and social of school- age children

Background:Children are sensitive to the crises produced by disease and hospitalization because they have a limited adaptive mechanism to solve the stressful factors. To do this, paying attention to those approaches that are not drug- based in children is very important. The purpose of this research in to determine the influence of storytelling on physiological, worry and social anxiety of hospitalized 7-10 children. Materials and methods:This clinical trail was executed on 64 hospitalized children of 7 to 10 years old. The samples were put randomly in two groups. The storytelling program was carried on intervention group. The control group received the common actions of the ward. In the first and sixth days, the examination of anxiety was performed on two groups. The collection of data was done through RCMAS scale. Finally, the data was analyzed by the statistical tests of Chi-square test and t-test in statistical software of SPSS 19. Results:The comparison of average of anxiety subscales in control group shows that the average of physiological and social anxiety on the first and sixth days had not any meaningful statistical differentiation (p > 0/05). But in intervention groups, the comparison of the anxiety subscale on the first and sixth days showed a meaningful statistical differentiation. Conclusion:The findings show that during the hospitalization the anxiety in control group, in all the subscales of physiological and social anxiety, is high. Storytelling could reduce all the dimensions of the subscales of physiological and social anxiety. Storytelling in the dimensions of worry anxiety subscale has the highest influence. Therefore, the use of storytelling as a non-drug-based, easy, unexpensive, accessible and children-favored method is advised. In research can introduce the storytelling as an inventive and new method to the domain of caring and curing in the children wards.