The effectiveness of narrative therapy and (ACT) in existential anxiety and irrational beliefs, on elders who resided in nursing homes

Reducing existential anxiety and improving irrational beliefs has a great effect on the mental health of elders. The aim of this study was to compare the efficacy of narrative therapy and acceptance & commitment therapy, in existential anxiety and irrational beliefs on elders. The method of this study was a quasi-experimental form pretest-posttest with a control group and followup. The statistical population consisted of older adults who resided in Tehran city nursing homes in 2018. 30 of elders who passed inclusion criteria were selected by available sampling method and they were randomly divided into two experimental and one control group of 10 members each. The experimental groups received 10 sessions twice a week of narrative therapy and acceptance & commitment therapy. All subjects passed the followup stage after 1.5 months from post-test. The Good's existential anxiety inventory and Jones' irrational beliefs test were used to collect data. Findings of ANCOVA revealed that both narrative therapy and acceptance & commitment therapy were significantly effective in reducing existential anxiety (p<0.01) and irrational beliefs (p<0.01), on subjects. However, acceptance & commitment therapy was more effective in reducing irrational beliefs (p>0.05), While both narrative and acceptance & commitment therapies had the same effect on existential anxiety variable (p<0.05). It seems that the similarity in the nature and performance of the implementation of narrative therapy and acceptance & commitment therapy and fitting with the conditions of the elderly people, these therapies had the same efficiency. The most appropriate reason for commitment-based and acceptance-based therapy to reduce irrational beliefs is also related to the creation of psychological flexibility on elders.