The Comparison of the Effectiveness of Healthy Elderly Training Model and Spirituality-Based Existential Therapy on Affective Capital Components of the Elderly

The elderly are valuable sources of experience and knowledge whose quality of life need to be improved. through scientific manners. Therefore, this study aims to compare the effectiveness of healthy elderly training model and spirituality-based existential therapy on affective capital components of the elderly. It was a quasi-experimental study with pretest-posttest design with a control group. The statistical population included all the elderly living in elderly care centers in Isfahan, Iran in the spring of 2022. The sample was made up of 58 elderly selected based on inclusion criteria by purposeful sampling method, and randomly assigned into two experimental groups of spirituality-based existential therapy (n=20) and healthy aging training (n=18), and one control group (n=20). Golparvar’s affective capital questionnaire (GACQ) was applied to collect data. Each of the healthy elderly training model and spirituality-based existential therapy underwent twelve 90-minute sessions of intervention. Data were analyzed using analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) in SPSS-26 software. The results revealed that after control of pretest, there was a significant difference between the groups in terms of positive affect (F=5.85; P=0.005), feeling of energy (F=4.30; P=0.02) and happiness (F=8.91; P=0.001). The comparison of the groups revealed that only healthy elderly training model was effective in increasing the components of affective capital. The effectiveness of healthy elderly training model on increasing affective capital components was confirmed in the present study. Therefore, this geriatric training can be used to help the elderly in elderly care centers.