The Effectiveness of Existential Group Therapy on Existential Anxiety and the Quality of Life of the Elderly

Aging is a challenging period and the last stage of human life. Awareness of imminent death causes existential anxiety in the elderly. Therefore, the elderly must have the ability to respond to their basic existential problems. Existential psychotherapy, focusing on the ultimate concerns of humans, including death, loneliness, emptiness, and freedom, seems to be a suitable treatment for the elderly. Therefore, this study was conducted to determine the effectiveness of existential group therapy (EGT) on existential anxiety and the quality of life of the elderly. The method of the present study was quasi-experimental with a pretest-posttest design and a control group. The statistical population was made up of the elderly between 60 and 85 years old referred to the social work clinic of Aftab Zendi in Shemiranat country, Tehran, in the second quarter of 2019. The sampling of this research was based on convenience sampling method. In general, 24 people were eligible to participate in group therapy in the current research, who were selected after considering the inclusion criteria and were randomly assigned into the experimental and control groups. The group therapy consisted of 12 Ninety-minute sessions, performed online due to the spread of the Covid-19 disease. Used to measure the mentioned criterion variables were Massoudi Sani and Bahmani’s existential anxiety questionnaire and Weir and Sherbon’s quality-of-life questionnaire (short form). The analysis of research data was done using analysis of univariate covariance (ANCOVA) in SPSS-21 software. Results indicated that according to the scores in posttest, existential anxiety has decreased and there is no significant increase in the quality of life of the elderly. In other words, the results of the research figured out that EGT reduces the existential anxiety of the elderly and it is possible to benefit from EGT as an effective treatment to deal with the mood problems in the elderly.