Effectiveness of Internet Attachment-Based Compassion Therapy on Rumination and Fear of Coronavirus Disease in Elderly Women during Coronavirus Epidemics

Based on the available data, the elderly people are the most vulnerable population during the coronavirus (COVID-19) epidemic since they both suffer from the disease and have to tolerate the quarantine that has been imposed to control the outbreak of the virus. Rumination is one of the most important variables during the COVID-19 epidemic due to the fact that people experience traumatic problems. The present study aimed to investigate the effect of Internet Attachment-based Compassion Therapy on rumination and fear of COVID-19 in elderly women during the epidemic.

 This was a quasi-experimental study with a pretest, posttest design, and a control group with a one-month follow-up. The statistical population included older women at Hamedan city, Iran, in 2020. The participants included 32 individuals who were randomly assigned into two groups of experiment (n=16) and control (n=16). The experiment group received eight sessions of Internet-based compassion treatment, and the control group did not receive any intervention. The data were collected using the Ruminative Response Scale to measure the fear of COVID-19 disease. The collected data were analyzed using SPSS software (Version 25) through one-way repeated measures analysis of variance and Bonferroni test, in two levels of descriptive (mean and standard deviation) and inferential statistics.

The analysis of obtained results in the post-test showed a significant decrease in rumination and fear of COVID-19 in the elderly women in the experiment group, compared to the control group during the pandemic. This result was consistent after a one-month follow-up (P<0.01).

 According to the results, it is recommended that health professionals and therapists use the Internet attachment-based compassion therapy approach along with other training and therapeutic approaches to decrease rumination and fear of coronavirus disease in the elderly women during the coronavirus epidemic.