The Effectiveness of Play Therapy with a Philiatherapy Approach on Grief Symptoms and Feelings of Loneliness in 7-11 Year Old Children with Grief Experience in Isfahan City

Nariman, Zahra; Sharifi, Tayyebeh; Ghasemi Pirbaluti, Mohammad

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The Effectiveness of Play Therapy with a Philiatherapy Approach on Grief Symptoms and Feelings of Loneliness in 7-11 Year Old Children with Grief Experience in Isfahan City

Zahra Nariman

, Tayyebeh Sharifi ^*

, Mohammad Ghasemi Pirbaluti

Abstract: (7 Views)

Background and Objective: Childhood grief is one of the most important stressors in emotional and social development that can lead to feelings of loneliness, anxiety, and behavioral problems. The present study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of play therapy with a filial therapy approach on grief symptoms and feelings of loneliness in children aged 7 to 11 years who have experienced grief.

Materials and Methods: The research method was a quasi-experimental research with a (pretest-posttest-follow-up) design with a control group. The statistical population of the study included children aged 7 to 11 years old studying in elementary school who had experienced grief in District 6 of Isfahan in the 2024-2025 academic year. 36 children aged 7 to 11 years old who had experienced grief were selected as samples through purposive sampling and randomly assigned to the experimental and control groups. The data collection tools were the Children's Grief Questionnaire (Barrett and Scott, 1998) and Children's Loneliness Questionnaire (Asher et al., 1984). Play therapy with the filial therapy approach of Ashouri and Karimnejad (2019) was implemented for the experimental group during eight 60-minute sessions. Data analysis was performed using the mixed analysis of variance method and Bonferroni post hoc test using SPSS version 23 software.

Results: The results showed that play therapy with a filial therapy approach had a significant effect on bereavement symptoms (P<0.001; Eta=0.51; F=06.27) and loneliness (P<0.001; Eta=0.52; F=08.28) in children with bereavement experience.

Conclusion: Filial therapy can be used by mental health professionals as an efficient, indigenous, and family-based approach for post-bereavement interventions.

Open Access Policy: This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Keywords: Play Therapy with a Filial Therapy Approach, Bereavement Symptoms, Loneliness, Children

Type of Study: Research | Subject: Health Promotion Interventions
Received: 2026/03/30 | Accepted: 2026/09/4

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