Comparing the effectiveness of music therapy and therapy based on acceptance and commitment on the feeling of social-emotional loneliness in the elderly with type 2 diabetes

The present study aimed to compare the effectiveness of music therapy and therapy based on acceptance and commitment to the feeling of social-emotional loneliness of the elderly with type 2 diabetes. The research method was semi-experimental with a pre-test-post-test design and a control group with a two-month follow-up period. The current research population included all the elderly people of Tehran City who were referred to health and treatment centers in East Tehran in 2021 and were suffering from type 2 diabetes. 45 people were selected purposefully and randomly assigned to two experimental groups and one control group. The research instrument was DiTommasso et al.'s social-emotional loneliness questionnaire (SELSA-S, 2004). Zadeh Mohammadi's music therapy intervention (2004) was implemented in 12 90-minute sessions and Hayes et al.'s (2006) acceptance and commitment therapy was implemented in 8 90-minute sessions as a group for the first and second experimental groups. The data were analyzed using mixed analysis of variance. The results showed that there is a significant difference between the groups in the post-test and follow-up of social-emotional loneliness of the elderly (P<0.05). Also, therapy based on acceptance and commitment had a significant effect on the feeling of social-emotional loneliness (P<0.05), but music therapy did not have a significant effect on the feeling of social-emotional loneliness (P<0.05). Therefore, it can be said that only the treatment based on acceptance and commitment had a significant effect on the feeling of loneliness.