The Effectiveness of Positive Psychotherapy on the Vitality in the Elderly

Vitality is presented as an energy-filled inner experience in which people experience a sense of life and spirit within themselves. Subjective vitality refers to a positive feeling of aliveness and energy. This condition appears to be important in the elderly. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to study of the effectiveness of positive psychotherapy on vitality in the elderly. This was a quasi-experimental study with pretest-posttest and control group design. The statistical population included all the elderly referring to the day care centers for the elderly in Aligudarz, Iran in 2018, among whom 30 elderly were chosen using purposive sampling method along with inclusion and exclusion criteria and assigned randomly into two groups of experimental and control (each with 15 members). Research tool consisted of Rayan & Frederick’s subjective vitality scale. The experimental group participated in a group positive psychotherapy for eight 90-minute sessions, while the control group did not receive any intervention. Data were analyzed using the univariate analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) in SPSS-25. The results indicated that positive psychotherapy, significantly increased vitality in the elderly. Based on the results of this study, positive psychotherapy is suggested to be used in order to increase vitality in the elderly.