The Effectiveness of a Religious Psychological Counselling Program in Reducing Depressive Symptoms among a Sample of Elderly Women in Care Homes in Amman

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Department of Guidance and Special Education, College of Educational Sciences, Mutah University, Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.

Abstract

The current study aimed to explore the effectiveness of a religious psychological counselling program in reducing depressive symptoms among a sample of elderly women in care homes in Amman, and to verify the effectiveness of the program after a specified period of time, on a sample consisting of (48) elderly women aging 60 years. The selection of (20) elderly was in terms of those who scored the highest scores in the level of depressive symptoms, and they were randomly divided into two equal groups, experimental and control, and in order to achieve the objectives of the study, the Beck scale of depression was used with indications of validity and stability appropriate for the purposes of the study, and a program of religious psychological counselling was developed. The results indicated that there are statistically significant differences between the mean performance of the experimental and control groups in depressive symptoms in favor of the experimental group on the post-measurement, and the results indicated that there were no statistically significant differences among the members of the experimental group, which indicated the continuity of the program’s impact after a period of implementation. The study recommended paying attention to providing counselling, psychological and religious services among elderly women in care homes to reduce depressive symptoms. 

Keywords


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