The effect of therapeutic play-based intervention programme applied to earthquake victim preschool children on psychosocial well-being: a randomised controlled trial

Therapeutic play intervention is an effective strategy that can promote cognitive development, reduce anxiety and stress, and increase confidence, enabling children to explore their problems, find solutions, and regulate their emotions. The current study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of the therapeutic play-based intervention program (TOTEM), which was developed to reduce the adverse psychosocial effects of earthquakes in preschool children. This study was conducted as a randomised, single-blinded, two-arm trial with a pre-test and post-test control. The study was conducted between May and September 2024 with 53 earthquake survivor children aged 4–6 years (Intervention Group: 26, Control Group: 27) in a container area in Kahramanmaraş. They were randomised to either a control group receiving usual care or an intervention group receiving a therapeutic play-based intervention program. The Descriptive Information Form, Preschool Anxiety Scale (PAS), Psychosocial Status Assessment Scale for Children Aged 3–6 Years – Parent-Form (PSAS 3–6), and Sleep Disturbance Scale for Children (SDSC) were used to collect the data. When the differences between the mean scores of the PAS, PSAS 3–6 and SDSC were examined, it was found that there was no significant difference between the groups before the intervention (p > 0.05). However, a statistically significant difference was observed in the post-test of the first month after the intervention (p < 0.05). Accordingly, it was determined that the scores of the experimental group were lower than those of the control group. This study concluded that TOTEM can be an effective intervention that can support the psychosocial well-being of preschool children with disaster experience. This study may provide insight into the necessity of including therapeutic play in intervention programs aiming to contribute to the psychosocial well-being of all professional groups working with children. This study was registered in ClinicalTrials.gov on 24/02//2025; registration number: NCT06845111.