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Abstract

Childhood depression is generally presented with traits such as negative mood, anhedonia, social isolation, negative self-esteem and hopelessness. These symptoms may become progressive in nature and further result in interpersonal problems. This study outlines the effect of the three interventions, which are, (a) Cognitive behavioural Therapy- Dramatics combined (b) Dramatics only (c) Cognitive behavioural Therapy only, on Childhood Depression. 31 school going children between the age group of 7-12 years from Delhi-NCR participated in this research. Informed consent and assents were taken from the parents, children and authorities. These participants were divided in to three groups and underwent the intervention for 10 weeks or 16 weeks respectively. English and Hindi translated Children Depression Inventory (Kovacs, 1992) was used. Skilling Mack analysis revealed that that all the three intervention plans significantly alleviated childhood depression. Post hoc analysis was done by employing Wilcoxon Sign Rank test. It was found that interventions specifically reduced childhood depression score during progression of session 1 to session 16 and session 1- session 10 intervals. CBT- Dramatics combined intervention group was highest in alleviation as compared to other interventions. Dramatics based intervention was capable of lowering psychotherapy dropout rates in participants, when compared to either combined intervention or CBT alone