Social Interaction Using Spirituality Therapy to Improve the Quality of Life of the Elderly in the Community

Reduced social interaction in the elderly can result in isolated feelings so that the elderly prefer to be alone, which eventually can lead to depression and affect their quality of life. Social interaction in the elderly can have a positive impact on the quality of life.

The present study was performed with aim to determine the effectiveness of social interaction as a therapy to improve the elderly’s quality of life.

This quasi-experimental study with a pretest-posttest design and a control group was conducted on 40 respondents in Gedongan Village, Baki District, Sukoharjo Regency, Central Java Province in January-February 2022. The social interaction intervention was completed separately in the intervention and control groups. The instrument for measuring the quality of life was adopted from the WHOQOL-BREF. Social interaction therapy utilized sermons conducted in groups by inviting Islamic teacher to provide material to the elderly that leads to improving the quality of life.

The wald Chi-square in the treatment group was 1.744 with a P-Value of 0.006 after the post-test. Control group wald Chi-square was 8.690 with P-value of 0.999 after the post-test. So that the output regression results showed that Social interaction using spirituality therapy improved the quality of life in the elderly. The elderly who received the intervention (post-test) tend to have a very good QoL of 0.29 times compared to the elderly who have not been intervened (pre-test).
Implications for Practice: The results of the present study indicated that the social interaction can improve quality of life in the elderly and can be considered as a part of the holistic care program.