Effects of Yalom Group therapy on the Resilience and Meaning in Life of the Nurses in Covid-19 Centers

This study aimed to analyze the effects of the Yalom group therapy on the resilience and meaning in life of the nurses fighting COVID-19.

This quasi-intervention pre-test post-test research was conducted with a control group. Statistical population of this study included all the nurses of the hospitals of Hamedan who cared for the COVID-19 patients in 2020. According to the inclusion and exclusion criteria, 32 nurses were randomly selected and divided equally into the intervention and control groups. The intervention group was treated by the Yalom group therapy for 10 sessions. Evaluation tools were the Connor-Davidson (2003) Resilience Questionnaire and The Meaning in Life Questionnaire of Steger et al. which were completed by both groups at pre-test and post-test stages. The data were analyzed using the multivariate analysis of covariance and univariate analysis of variance in SPSS software (version 24).

The significance level of the difference between the mean scores of "meaning in life" was less than 0.05 (P<0.05). Hence, the difference between the means was significant and it can be said that the Yalom group therapy affects the meaning in life. According to the eta-squared value, the extend of this impact was about 64%. Moreover, the difference between the mean of the resilience scores of the intervention and control group was 58.94 and the significance level of this value was less than 0.05 (F [1 and 27] =58.937, P=0.001). Therefore, the difference between the means of the resilience scores of the intervention and control groups was significant with 95% confidence. It can be said that the Yalom group therapy had a significant impact on the resilience of the nurses.

The results can be used to maintain and care for the mental health of nurses during severe disease epidemics, such as the Coronavirus epidemic.