The Comparison of the Effectiveness of Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy and Spiritual Therapy on the Meaning of life and Wisdom in the Elderly

The choice of appropriate treatment methods which increase the ability level of the elderly to deal with the physical and mental deficiencies of old age will be a great help to human societies. Therefore, this study was conducted with the aim of comparing the effectiveness of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) and spirituality therapy on the meaning of life and wisdom of the elderly. The research method was quasi-experimental with a pre-test-post-test design with two experimental groups and one control group. The statistical population of the research included of the elderly of Tehran in 2022. The sample size of the research consisted of 54 elderly selected by convenience sampling method and based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria of the study, and randomly assigned to two experimental groups (MBCT and spiritual therapy) and one control group. Used to collect data were Ardelet’s wisdom and Steger et al.’s meaning of life questionnaires. One of the experimental groups underwent eight 90-minute weekly session of MBCT, and the other group received ten 90-minute weekly sessions of spiritual therapy. The data were analyzed using analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) in SPSS-24. The results indicated that both MBCT and spiritual therapy are effective on the meaning of life and wisdom of the elderly. However, the effectiveness of the spiritual therapy method on the meaning of life was more than that of the MBCT (P<0.001). Based on the findings of this research, MBCT and spiritual therapy can be used as effective intervention methods to increase the meaning of life and wisdom in the elderly.
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