The Effectiveness of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy on Sleep Disorder and Death Anxiety in the Elderly

Death anxiety and sleep disorder seem to be of the common disorders in the elderly. Among the different treatment methods, cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) is considered as a potential solution in relation to reducing death anxiety and sleep disorder. Therefore, the purpose of the current study was to consider the effectiveness of CBT on sleep disorder and death anxiety in the elderly. This was a practical study in terms of its purpose and according to the nature of the research, it was a quasi-experimental study with a pretest-posttest and a control group design. The statistical population included all the elderly living in nursing homes in Sari, Iran among which one nursing home was randomly selected, and a sample of 32 people was selected among its members by convenience sampling method and based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria of the study and were randomly assigned to two experimental and control groups in the same ratio. The tools applied in the study included Baisi et al.’s Petersburg sleep questionnaires, Templer’s death anxiety scale, and Beck et al.’s CBT protocol which represented in form of eight 90-minute sessions. Data were analyzed using univariate covariance analysis (ANCOVA) in SPSS-16 software. The findings illustrated that CBT resulted in a significant decrease of sleep disorder and death anxiety in the elderly. The findings of this research indicated that using a suitable treatment method can improve the quality of sleep in the elderly and reduce the level of their death anxiety.
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