Background: Anxiety disorder is known as one of the most common disorders in
students, especially in girls compared to boys, which exposes children to many
short-term and long-term consequences.Various treatments, including the Cool
Kids Anxiety Program, which is a combination of cognitive behavioral therapy and
family therapy, have been suggested for this disorder.
Aim: This research was conducted with the aim of studying the effect of the Cool
Kids Anxiety Program on reducing general anxiety symptoms, mothers' parenting
stress, and cognitive emotion regulation of children with anxiety disorders.
Methodology: This experimental research is a quasi-experimental type with a pretest- post-test design with a control group. The statistical population of the study
included all female students with anxiety disorders in the third, fourth and fifth
grades of Bushehr primary school in the academic year of 1401-1400. The research
sample included 30 female students with anxiety disorders along with their mothers
who were randomly assigned to two control and experimental groups. To collect
data, Spence Children’s Anxiety Scale – Parent (SCAS-Parent) Parenting Stress
Index-short form(Abidin, 1995) and The Cognitive Emotion Regulation
Questionnaire 36 item (CERQ; Garnefski, 2001) were used. The experimental
group received 8 therapy sessions once a week and finally the obtained data were
analyzed with the statistical method of covariance analysis .
Conclusions: The data analysis showed that There is a significant difference
between the two experimental and control groups in the post-test, excluding the
effect of the pre-test on the scores of children's general symptoms of anxiety in both
child and parent forms, mothers' parenting stress, and also the general scores of
adaptive and maladaptive strategies of cognitive emotion regulation in children
with anxiety disorders. Therefore, this treatment program can be used as an
effective protocol in treating children's anxiety and then im