Hospitalization is stressful for children of all ages. Play helps children to learn to adapt to the health care experiences. A study to evaluate the effectiveness of play therapy in reducing the level of anxiety among hospitalized children (3-6 years) at selected hospitals. The objectives are to (1) Assess the level of anxiety in children in experimental and control group. (2) To evaluate the effectiveness of play therapy in reducing level of anxiety among hospitalized children (3-6 years) in experimental group. (3) To compare the pretest level of anxiety and post-test level of anxiety among hospitalized children in experimental and control group. (4) To associate the pre-test and post-test level of anxiety among hospitalized children of experimental group with selected demographic variables. Pre-test, post-test & control group design. The study was conducted in KCG Hospital, Bangalore. Population of the study comprises of 40 hospitalized children using simple random Sampling Technique. In the pretest 50% had severe anxiety, and 15% of the children had mild anxiety before the intervention of play therapy and the post-test 5% had severe anxiety, 30% have moderate anxiety & 65% had mild anxiety. In the pre-test mean value is 15.85 with a standard deviation of 1.68. In the post test the mean value is 23.87 with a standard deviation of 1.72. The paired ‘t’ test value is 21.066 which is highly significant at p < 0.001 level. In the pretest the gender and type of family were significant; In the post-test the age of children, religion, type of family, family income, and child admission to the hospital, area of residence, and previous exposure to play therapy were significant. Thus it indicates that the play therapy was effective in decreasing the level of anxiety among the hospitalized children 3-6years.