Effectiveness of Spirituality Therapy on the Dimensions of Quality of Life of Elderly

 Aging is a critical period of human life and considering the issues and needs of this stage is a social necessity. The purpose of the present study was to determine the effectiveness of spirituality therapy on the dimensions of quality of life of the elderly.

 In this quasi-experimental study with pretest-posttest design and follow-up with the control group, 40 elderly were selected by purposive sampling method trough referring to the three nursing homes of the elderly in Esfahan city. The subjects were randomly divided into two experimental and control groups with 20 people for each group. Data collection tool was a world health organization quality of life questionnaire (WHOQOL-BREEF) and King's spiritual intelligence questionnaire. Frankl's spirituality therapy protocol was performed for the experimental group in three 30-minutes sessions and at the end of the sessions, two groups were tested. A follow-up step was performed after 3 months. Data were analyzed by SPSS 23 software using multivariate analysis of covariance and analysis of variance with repeated measurements.

 After controlling the pre-test effect there was a significant difference between the mean scores of quality of life variables in the experimental and control groups at the post-test and follow-up stages (p=0.0001). There was no significant difference between the two groups in the mental health variable (p>0.05).

 Spiritual therapy is effective in improving the quality of life of the elderly.