Iranian Journal of War and Public Health

Background: Children exposed to war are at risk of anxiety and adaptive difficulties. Self-compassion may offer developmentally appropriate coping strategies. This study examined an eight-session child-centered self-compassion program on resilience and separation anxiety in war-affected children.
Methods: This nonrandomized controlled trial used a pretest-posttest control-group design. Sixty children aged 8–12 years with documented war-related stressful events were recruited from two support centers in Tehran and allocated nonrandomly by the first author using consecutive allocation. Allocation was not concealed. The intervention group received eight weekly 60-minute sessions. The control group received usual support-center services only. Resilience and separation anxiety were assessed at pretest and posttest. Data were analyzed using ANCOVA with pretest scores as covariates.
Results: At baseline, groups were comparable. Mean resilience increased from 49.27±6.34 to 67.91±5.72 in the intervention group versus 48.83±6.11 to 50.12±6.27 in controls. Separation anxiety decreased from 43.18±6.52 to 27.46±5.61 versus 42.71±6.38 to 41.26±6.45. After adjustment, groups differed in resilience (F (1,57) =91.64, p<0.001, ηp²=0.615, 95% CI = 17.05 [14.18, 19.92]) and separation anxiety (F (1,57) =84.27, p<0.001, ηp²=0.597, 95% CI = −13.30 [−16.09, −10.51]). Adjusted posttest means were 67.54±1.02 vs. 50.49±1.01 for resilience and 27.71±0.99 vs. 41.01±0.98 for separation anxiety. These effect sizes may be inflated due to the small sample and nonrandom allocation.
Conclusion: Child-centered self-compassion training was associated with increased resilience and reduced separation anxiety immediately after the intervention. Because the study was nonrandomized and had no follow-up, findings are preliminary and do not establish causality or durability.