Survey of the Effect of Laughter Therapy on the Severity of Depression Symptoms in Patients with Major Depressive Disorder Using the Virtual Reality

Introduction: Major depressive disorder is one of the most common psychiatric illnesses. Laughter therapy as a non-pharmacological and alternative treatment method has a positive effect on mental health and psychiatric diseases. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of Laughter therapy the severity of depression symptoms in patients with major depressive disorder using the virtual reality.Method: we conducted this clinical trial on ۵۶ patients with major depressive disorder hospitalized in the ۲۲ Bahman educational and medical center affiliated to Qazvin University of Medical Sciences. The participants were selected using Convenience Sampling and were randomly assigned to control and test group. The intervention group received ۱۰ sessions of laughter therapy using virtual reality by VR-BOX۲ during ۵ weeks. The control group just received the routine program of the medical center. Pretest, intervention and posttest with ۳-month interval using demographic and depression questionnaire was done. We performed t-test and Chi-Square to analyze the data using Spss v-۲۲.Result: result showed that there was a significant difference between mean of depression severity of patients in intervention group with control group after the intervention (P=۰.۰۰۰). Also there was a significant difference in patience depression severity of intervention and control group after ۳ months.Conclusion: the laughter therapy technique based on the reality therapy can reduce the severity of depressive symptoms and it is suggested to use it along with other therapies for patients with major depressive disorder.

Keywords:

laughter therapy , major depressive disorder , virtual reality.