The Effect of Nursing Intervention Integrated Therapeutic Recreation Program on Loneliness Among Community-Dwelling Older Persons

Abstract

The purposes of this quasi-experimental research aim to compare 1) loneliness in older persons among experimental group before and after receiving nursing intervention integrated therapeutic recreation program, and 2) loneliness among the experimental group those who receive program and control group those who received only conventional nursing care.  The conceptual framework for nursing intervention integrated therapeutic recreation program in this study was based on “Loneliness nursing intervention” (Newfield, et al., 2007; Wilkinson and Ahem, 2009; Carpenito-Moyet, 2013) and “Therapeutic Recreation” (Keller and Hudson, 1991). The participants consisted of 40 community-dwelling older persons, age between 60-79 years old, experienced moderate loneliness and met study criteria were recruited. The first 20 participants were assigned to experimental group and the later 20 participants were control group. Both groups were pair-matched by age, gender, marital status, education and degree of loneliness. The experimental group received program designed by researcher was set out 90 minutes twice a week 12 sessions for 6 weeks. Research instruments were: 1) The nursing intervention integrated therapeutic recreation program for older persons with loneliness, 2) The University of California, Los Angeles loneliness scale version 3 (1996), 3) Rosenberg’s Self Esteem Scale (1965). All instruments were validated for content validity by 5 professional experts. The Chronbach’s Alpha coefficient reliability of the two latter instruments were .90 and .89, respectively. The t-test was used in data analysis. Major findings showed 1) the loneliness average score of older persons who participate in nursing intervention integrated therapeutic recreation program was significant lower than the average score of prior to experiment, and 2) the loneliness average score of older persons who participate in nursing intervention integrated therapeutic recreation program after receive program was significant lower than the loneliness average score of those who received only conventional nursing care.