The effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral intervention based on stress-induced immunization training on improving sleep quality and mental health of adults during covid-19 pandemic

Following the prevalence of the Covid-19 pandemic, people especially the elderly over the age of 65 are more vulnerable to the disease. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral intervention based on stress-induced immunization training in order to improve sleep quality and mental health of the older adults during pandemic lockdown. This was a quasi-experimental study with pre-test and a control group. The participants were 21 older adults with poor quality of sleep in Tehran, Iran during 2021-2022. This online study was carried out in the last week of July 2021. Snowball sampling was used to recruit the participants from one source to another. In order to develop an e-questionnaire, Whatsapp link was used, which contained close-ended items as well as Likert-scale questions on Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) and General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12). The individuals were randomly divided into experimental (n=12) and control groups (n=9). The experimental group was trained weekly on immunization against stress based on cognitive-behavioral principles (10 weekly sessions, 45 minutes), while the control group did not receive this training. After collecting data, SPSS V. 23 was used to analyze the data (p > .05). Demographic findings showed that the number of women was more than men (24.63% men and 75.37% women) and the Mean ± SD age in the experimental group was 64.52 ± 14.83 and in the control group it was 62.54 ± 13.55, which did not differ significantly in terms of this variable (p > .05). The results showed that cognitive-behavioral intervention based on stress-induced immunization training significantly improved sleep quality and mental health in the experimental group (p < .001). Overall, the stress immunization program is an effective way to improve sleep quality and the mental health of older adults during the pandemic lockdown. Therefore, it is recommended to focus on such intervention to help vulnerable groups during this pandemic.