The Effectiveness of Structured Group Reminiscence on the Enhancement of the Elderly's Life Quality and Happiness

This study was performed to examine the efficacy of structured group reminiscence on the enhancement of life quality and happiness of the elderly in Hamedan. The study design was pretest-posttest with control group. The statistical method was variance analysis with double repeated measure analysis. Twenty four elderlies (10 females, 14 men) with age ranges of 60-82 years old (M= 70.79, SD= 7.83) were assigned equally to control and experimental groups. The experimental group received 12 weekly sessions of structured reminiscence. To record the trend of changes in scores, the participants were asked to complete the short form of Life Quality (SF-36; Ware & Sherbourne, 1992) and Depression-Happiness (McGreal & Joseph, 1993) questionnaires in the pretest phase, the third session, the sixth session, the ninth session, the twelfth session and one month after the intervention. The results indicated that structured group reminiscence did not have any significant effect on life quality score of the elderly. Yet, the score of happiness increased significantly and these achievements were remained in one-month follow up. Based on the findings, the necessity of using structural group reminiscence for enhancing positive emotions in the elderly was emphasized.