Objective: To examine the effect of a Cognitive Behavioral Therapy-based psychoeducation program on the anxiety and depression levels of eight-year-old children. Method: The population of the research consists of 8-year-old children in Kagıthane district of Istanbul. The sample of the study consisted of a total of twenty children, ten children in the experimental group and ten children in the control group, who agreed to participate in the psychoeducation program. The research is an experimental study with control and experimental groups. The Revised Child Anxiety And Depression Scale was used as a data collection tool in the study. In the research, children in the experimental group attended one session per week, a total of 10 sessions of 60 minutes each, and a termination session, while no study was conducted on the children in the control group. In order to test the significance of the difference between the groups in the data analysis, the Mann Whitney-U test was applied, and the Wilcoxon Signs Test was applied to determine whether there was a significant difference between the pretest and posttest scores of the groups. Results: As a result of the analyses, a significant decrease was observed in the anxiety and depression levels of the children in the experimental group compared to the control group. It was observed that the anxiety levels of the control group increased over time. Findings obtained; showed that the cognitive-behavioral-based psychoeducation program had a significant effect on children's anxiety and depression levels.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Anxiety, Depression, Psychoeducation