Effect of existential group therapy on distress tolerance, existential anxiety, meta-worry and health worry in elderly women with cardiovascular disease

This study aimed to determine the effect of existential group therapy on distress tolerance, existential anxiety, meta-worry and health worry in elderly women with cardiovascular disease.

 Elderly women with cardiovascular disease have major problems in psychological health and one of the intervention methods for reducing psychological problems is existential group therapy.

 This study was a semi-experimental study with pre-test and post-test design with control group. In this study, 40 elderly women with cardiovascular disease referred to Mehr hospital of Ahvaz city in 2018, were selected by convenience sampling method and randomly divided into experimental and control group. Experimental group experienced 10 sessions of 60 minutes duration existential group therapy and the control group was placed on the waiting list for training. Research tools were the questionnaires distress tolerance, existential anxiety, meta-worry and health worry. Data were analyzed in SPSS software version 21 with using independent t-tests and multivariate analysis of covariance.

 Before intervention, there was no statistically significant difference between the groups in distress tolerance, existential anxiety, meta-worry and health worry, but after intervention, a statistically significant difference was observed between groups in terms of all four variables (P≤0.0001). In the other words, the method of existential group therapy increased distress tolerance (F=52.158, P≤0.0001), and decreased existential anxiety (F=67.813, P≤0.0001), meta-worry (F=59.766, P≤0.0001) and health worry (F=60.475, P≤0.0001) in elderly women with cardiovascular disease.

 The results indicated the effect of existential group therapy on increasing distress tolerance and decreasing existential anxiety, meta-worry and health worry in elderly women with cardiovascular disease. It is recommended that clinical psychologists and therapists use the method of existential group therapy along with other therapeutics methods for improving psychological health of elderly women with cardiovascular disease.