سمیه رمضانلی

Hopefulness and happiness can affect the quality of life of people, especially the elderly. Since positivist psychology creates a wide range of strategies to increase happiness, hopefulness, and other positive emotions, so considering the importance of aging and the psychological issues of the elderly, the aim of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of positive psychology of happiness and hopefulness of elderly people in elderly care centers.

This study was an experimental study in which the study population consisted of all the elderly people in elderly care centers. Among the elderly care centers in Shiraz, 60 people were selected by cluster random sampling and replaced in two experimental (30) and control (30) groups. The experimental group received 8 sessions of 120 minutes for 2 months based on positive psychology training and the control group did not receive any training during this period. The Oxford Happiness and Schnyder Hope Questionnaire was used to collect data. After the meetings, post-test and follow-up were performed 1 month later. For data analysis, SPSS version 21 was used. 

The results showed that the mean and standard deviation of happiness and hopefulness respectively (33.43±4.36) - (42.93 ±3.12), (46.36 ± 3.78) - (51.66 ± 1.98) there was a statistically significant difference in the experimental group before and after the study (P <0.05). However, no significant change was observed in the control group. Also, the comparison of the mean and standard deviation of happiness and hopefulness between the two groups of test and control after the study and follow-up had a statistically significant difference (P <0.05).

Findings of this study showed that positive psychology can promote happiness and hopefuness in the elderly.

Establishing an effective communication with patients is an essential aspect of nursing care. However, most of studies described the nurse-patient relationship as weak. Recognition of barriers in nurse-patient’s effective communication from their viewpoint could facilitate the actions need to be taken for removing such barriers. The study aimed to assess barriers of nurse-patient’s effective communication from nurse's viewpoints. Methods and Materials: This descriptive study was undertaken in 2013, with a sample of 100 nurses drawn from two educational hospitals in jahrom. They were selected by random sampling. Data were gathered through a questionnaire with 30 questions for nurses on a 5-point Likert rating scale.It asses's four aspects of communication barriers including (job characteristics, socio-demographic factors, clinical condition of patient and environmental factor). Data were analyzed using SPSS19 software, descriptive statistics (percentage, frequency, mean and standard deviation) and inferential statistics (kolmograph nonparametric test, Mann-Whitney and Spearman correlation test). The results of this study showed that the greatest barriers of Nurse - Patient communication related to Occupational characteristics of nurses with an average score of 78/24± 9/80. Environmental factors, socio-demographic factors and clinical conditions of the patients, respectively, were communication barriers that nurses have more emphasis on it. In this study, found a statistically significant correlation between mean scores of communication barriers with age and working hours of nurses. Nurses also perceived as major barriers to communication have been identified in relation to the characteristics of their job. Thus health manager should put their attempts on eliminating or modifying the most important barriers announced by nurses.