Effectiveness of Laughter Therapy in Increasing the Life Expectancy of Old Women

The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of laughter therapy on life expectancy in theelderly women. This is a quasi-experimental study in which 34 people from among all elderlywomen living in nursing homes in Shiraz in 2014 were selected through convenient sampling. Ofwhich, 17 patients were randomly assigned to the experimental group and 17 to the controlgroup. Only the experimental group participated in 15 sessions of one hour laughter therapy andthe control group received no intervention. Instrument was Miller's life expectancy questionnairethat was done in the pre-test and post-test on all members. Finally, data was analyzed usingmultivariate analysis of variance by SPSS-18 at a significance level of 0.05. Results of betacoefficient showed that laughter therapy increases life expectancy in the elderly that was 0.73. Soit seems that with the increase of laughter and joy, the life expectancy and, in general, mentalhealth in older women can beincreased.

Keywords:

Laughter therapy , life expectancy , the elderly , women