The effect of laughter therapy on the quality of life of elderly nursing home residents

Background: The old age is associated with the physical and psychological problems that affect the quality of life (QoL). The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of laughter therapy on the QoL of residential elderly persons in nursing home.Materials and Methods: This research was a quasi-experiment. The statistical population consisted of 44 elderly people in the Mehraein nursing home in Astaneh Ashrafieh (2017). 32 elderly were selected and randomly assigned into two experimental and control groups. The experimental group received an interventional program consisting of Madan Kataria s laughter therapy, playing comic films, and reading joke s books for one month over 12 sessions of 100 minutes. After completing laughter interventions, both groups responded to the LEIPAD quality of life questionnaire. Data were analyzed using co-variance analysis of repeated measures.Results: A statistically significant difference between the two groups was found in the QoL(P<0.01).That is, the adjusted mean of the experimental group in the QoL was significantly higher than the mean of the control group (P<0.01). Also, the mean of follow-up stage was higher than the mean of pre-test stage in the experimental group, which indicates the stability of the intervention effects after one month (P<0.01).Conclusion: Laughter therapy intervention has a positive effect on improving the QoL of the elderly. Therefore, it is necessary that authorities consider this program at nursing homecare nursing centers as a complementary method in addition to the existing treatments for reducing mental health problems and improving the QoL of the elderly

The effect of laughter therapy on the quality of life of elderly nursing home residents Keywords:

The Elderly , Quality Of Life , Elderly Nursing Home