Effectiveness of GroupCognitive-Behavioral Therapy on Death Anxiety among the Breavement Elderly Man

Introduction and The mourning experience is a common phenomenon among the elderly. Losing friends and peers along withsenility and proximity to the last years of life causes intensification of mental distress and anxiety of the elderly toward the death phenomenon. The present research was carried out aimed at analyzing the effectiveness of group cognitive-behavioral therapy on death anxiety among the Breavement elderly man.The current study is a semi-experimental research using posttest-pretest plan with control group. The statistical population of the research included the Breavement elderly living in the one of the nursing homes of Ardebil City in 2014. 30 mournful old adults were selected using the available sampling technique.Templer Death anxiety questionnaire (DAS) was applied as pretest-posttest in the research and cognitive-behavioral intervention was implimented on the examinee groups in 8 sessions of 90 minutes. The data were analyzed using analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) statistical method. The analysis results indicate that groupcognitive-behavioral therapy has been effective on the death anxiety of the elderly and there was a significant difference between the two groups(p<0.001). According to the results of this research, group cognitive-behavioral therapy leads to reduction of death anxiety of the elderly via helping them to accept death.