Evaluating the Effectiveness of Psychodrama, Reminiscence and Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy of Ellis on Happiness of Elderly Men

Regarded to the increasing number of the elderly and the importance of happiness in them, the present study was conducted with the aim of evaluating the effectiveness of psychodrama, reminiscence and rational emotive behavioral therapy of Ellis on the happiness of elderly men.

This research was semi-experimental with pre-test and post-test design with a control group. The research population was an elderly men of home elderly in Kermanshah city in 2019 year. The sample research was 40 people who after reviewing the inclusion criteria were selected by purposive sampling method and randomly were assigned to four equal groups (three experimental groups and one control group). The first experimental group received 12 one-hour sessions of psychodrama education, the second experimental group received 10 one-and-a-half-hour sessions of reminiscence education, the third experimental group received 8 one-and-a-half-hour sessions of rational emotive behavioral therapy and control group remained on the waiting list for training. Data were collected with using a mini-mental state examination and the Oxford happiness inventory and analyzed by univariate analysis of covariance and LSD post hoc test in SPSS software.

The results indicated that the all three intervention methods of psychodrama, reminiscence and rational emotive behavioral therapy of Ellis in compared to the control group led to increase the happiness score of elderly men and the effectiveness of psychodrama method was higher than rational emotive behavioral therapy (P<0.05), but there was no significant difference between the effectiveness of the two methods of psychodrama and reminiscence and the two methods of reminiscence and rational emotive behavioral therapy on increasing happiness (P>0.05).

According to the results, therapists and health professionals can use all three methods, especially the psychodrama method to increase the happiness of elderly men.