The Effectiveness of Logotherapy on Depression and Positive Psychological Characteristics of the Elderly

The elderly age seems to be a proper time for finding the meaning of life and personal growth compared to other periods of life. The existence of meaning in life of the elderly is an important factor for the continuation of their life and finding meaning in life serve an important role in mental health and quality of life of the elderly. Therefore, this research aimed to investigate the effectiveness of logotherapy on depression and positive psychological characteristics of the elderly living in Isfahan. The research method was semi-experimental with pretest-posttest and follow-up design with a control group. The participants included all the elderly aged above 60 years old living in Isfahan. First, two centers were selected among Retired Teachers Associations and then, 40 participants were selected purposefully based on inclusion and exclusion criteria and were randomly assigned with an equal ratio into the experimental and control groups (20 participants each). The experiment group were exposed to the Logotherapy for 11 90-minute sessions, while control group did not receive any intervention at this time. Measurs consisted of Yasavage et. al’s elderly depression scale and Rashid’s positive psychological characteristics scale. Utilized to analyze of the data was SPSS-23 software. Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) demonstrated that logotherapy has a significant role in improving depression and positive psychological characteristics of the elderly (P<0.05). According to the findings of the current research, logotherapy can be used as an efficient method at counselling and psychotherapy centers in order to creat good feeling in the elderly, in turn leading to the decrease of their inanity feeling and depression.