Bibliotherapy Combined With Games to Reduce Fear of the Dark in Young Children

Miguel Hernández University of Elche

Status: Completed

Conditions: Nighttime Fears; Fear of the Dark; Bibliotherapy

Treatments: Behavioral: Bibliotherapy combined with games to overcome fear of the dark

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT07067320

DPS.MOA.210423

Details and patient eligibility

About

Intense fear of the dark is a common issue among children, which can interfere with their daily functioning at family, social, and academic levels. This study aims to analyse the effectiveness of a psychotherapeutic intervention based on bibliotherapy combined with play to overcome the fear of the dark in children between 4 and 8 years old. A total of 38 children participated, who were assigned to the experimental and control conditions on the waiting list. The bibliotherapy intervention in the experimental condition involved reading a book and playing the games proposed in each chapter. The intervention was applied by parents at home with their children (during 4-5 weeks) and contained cognitive-behavioural techniques, such as gradual in vivo exposure, relaxation techniques, modelling and positive reinforcement, among others. It is expected that children's nighttime fears will decrease significantly and there will be significant improvements in nighttime behaviour.

Enrollment: 39 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 3 to 8 years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Being between 4 and 8 years old
• Obtaining a score of 32 or higher on the Parent Version of the Nighttime Fears Scale (NFS-P; Orgilés et al., 2024)

Exclusion criteria

• Not being within the established age range
• Scoring less than 31on the Parent Version of the Nighttime Fears Scale (NFS-P; Orgilés et al., 2024)

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Non-Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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39 participants in 2 patient groups

Experimental group receiving bibliotherapeutic intervention

Experimental group

Description:

Bibliotherapy combined with games to overcome fear of the dark

Treatment:

Behavioral: Bibliotherapy combined with games to overcome fear of the dark

Waiting list control group (receiving intervention at the end of treatment with experimental group)

No Intervention group