The Effectiveness of Acceptance and Commitment based Therapy on Depression, Psychological Health and Life Expectancy of the Elderly with Nonclinical Depression

Elderly seems to be one of the challenging periods of life due to a decrease of physical and psychological functions and the elderly with nonclinical depression face many problems including an increase of depression and a decrease of health and life expectancy. Therefore, the current research aimed to determine the effectiveness of acceptance and commitment based therapy on depression, psychological health and life expectancy of the elderly with nonclinical depression. This study was a quasi-experimental with pretest and posttest with control group design. The research population included all the elderly with non-clinical depression referring to the psychological service centers and clinics in Ahvaz, Iran in the spring of 2020. The sample included 50 people selected according to including and excluding criteria, using purposive sampling method and were randomly assigned into two equal groups. The experimental group received 10 sessions of 90 minutes acceptance and commitment therapy and the control group was in a waiting list for training. The research tools were the geriatric depression scale (Yasavage & Sheikh), psychological health scale (Najjarian & Davodi) and life expectancy scale (Snyder et. al.). Data were analyzed using ANCOVA in SPSS-19. The findings indicated that the experimental group was significantly different in terms of all three variables of depression, psychological health and life expectancy. In the other words, acceptance and commitment therapy led to a reduction in depression and an improvement of psychological health and life expectancy in the elderly with nonclinical depression (p < 0.05). According to the results of the present study, therapists and health professionals can take advantages of acceptance and commitment therapy in health-related interventions, especially to reduce depression and improve psychological health and life expectancy. 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