2013 Volume 35 Issue 1 Pages 39-48
This study aims to deliberate the psychological effects of an intervention program to make life story books reflecting the life-review process by the frail elderly. We selected as participants 22 elderly persons aged 71-95 who lived in nursing homes. Among these elderly, we assigned 10 participants for an intervention and 12 for a control group, respectively. The program continued for 6 consecutive weeks, where the intervention group was interviewed once a week to convey their life review. Later, the stories were edited into life story books. To examine the intervention effects of the program, pre- and post- evaluation tests were conducted for both groups. Emotional well-being, negative-mood, self-esteem and integrity were measured to assess the psychological state of the participants. The results of ANOVA with repeated measures showed significant interaction effects on emotional well-being, negative-mood and self-esteem. These three indices revealed differing affects on the intervention and control groups : the score of emotional well-being and negative-mood for the intervention group improved, whereas self-esteem for the control group deteriorated. Our result suggests that creating life story books reflecting the life-review process can be one of the effective tools to enhance the psychological well-being of frail elderly.
