Effectiveness of laughter therapy on the hope and pain intensity in elderly

Pain associated with undesirable health status and can reduce the hope in the elderly’s life appears to be one of the most abundant symptoms reported by the aged. Thus, the aim of the current study was to investigate the effectiveness of laughter therapy on the hope and pain intensity in residents of the nursing homes in Astaneh-ye Ashrafiyeh, Iran. This research was a quasi-experimental of pretest-posttest and control group with a one-month follow-up design. The statistical population consisted of all the aged who resided in nursing homes in Astaneh Ashrafieh. Selected among 44 residents in the MehrAein nursing home were statistical samples. Based on the inclusion criteria, 32 elderly were selected and randomly assigned into experimental (n=16) and control (n=16) groups as participants. The experimental group received an interventional program consisting of Madan Kataria's laughter therapy, playing comic movies, and reading comic books for one month, in twelve 100-minute sessions. Filled out by participants in pre-test post-test phases were General Health Questionnaire (Goldberg & Hillier), Adult Hope Scale (Snyder) and Visual Analogue Scale (Woodforde & Merskey). The follow-up phase was conducted one month after the end of intervention. Having been processed through the Repeated Measures Analysis of Covariance, the results demonstrated that there is a significant difference between experimental and control groups in the post-test and follow-up phases in terms of the adjusted mean of hope and pain intensity scores ‌(P<0.05). Concerning the results, it can be mentioned that laughter therapy seems to be effective on the hope and pain intensity. Therefore, laughter therapy is necessary to be considered as one of the non-pharmacological complementary therapies to reduce the pain and increase the hope which, in turn, will improve the living conditions and purposefulness of the elderly