The Effects of Group Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy on the Reduction of Social Phobia Disorder among Children

It is normal to be anxious in certain circumstances but social phobia or social anxiety disorder is a common and disabling condition. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of group cognitive-behavioral therapy on children with social phobia disorder. The design of the study was semiexperimental (pre-Test, Post-Test) with control group. Sampling was purposeful in which 20 children, who were diagnosed as Social phobia disorder, were selected, and randomly divided into two groups (10 subjects each). Experimental group received 11 sessions of group cognitivebehavioral therapy once a week. Tools were Raven Test in which special children with 36 items and Shapes and Spence's Anxiety Test with 44 items and 6 subscales one of which was social phobia. Variance and covariance analyses were used for data analysis. The results of covariance analysis showed the significant effect of group cognitive-behavioral therapy on reduction of social phobia disorder in children in post test and follow up stage. (p<0.05)