Comparison of the effectiveness of well-being therapy with acceptance and commitment therapy on the feeling of loneliness in the elderly

Aging is associated with many diseases, deficiencies and disabilities and the elderly are exposed to many problems. The aim of this study was to compare the effectiveness of well-being therapy with acceptance and commitment therapy on the feeling of loneliness in the day care center for the elderly.

The present study was a quasi-experimental pretest-posttest with a one-month follow-up phase with a control group. The statistical population of the present study included the elderly of Neshat Nursing Home in Mashhad. Among these people, 45 people were selected by purposive sampling method and randomly divided into three groups of 15 people. The experimental groups underwent 8 sessions of 90 minutes of well-being therapy or acceptance and commitment therapy and no action was taken for the control group. Data collection tools included a loneliness questionnaire. SPSS software version 22 and mixed analysis of variance with repeated measures at the level of 0.05 were used to analyze the research data.

The results showed that well-being therapy and acceptance and commitment therapy had a significant effect on reducing the loneliness of the elderly in the post-test and follow-up stages (P <0.001). But there was no significant difference between the effectiveness of the two groups (P <0.05).

According to the results, well-being therapy and acceptance and commitment therapy can be used to improve the feeling of loneliness in the elderly.