Effect of psychosocial care model applied in an "elderly day care center" on loneliness, depression, quality of life, and elderly attitude.

BACKGROUND

The purpose of the study is to evaluate the effect of the model applied in order to meet psychosocial care needs of elderly people in an elderly day care center on loneliness, depression, quality of life, and elderly attitude.

METHOD

An intervention program prepared for the psychosocial needs of elderly people was carried out in the study and it was evaluated as pretest-posttest. The data were collected with UCLA Loneliness Scale (UCLA, LS), Geriatric Depression Scale Short Form (GDS-SF), Turkish version of the WHO Quality of Life Instrument Older Adults Module (WHOQOL-OLD-TR) and Turkish version of the WHO - Atittudes of Aging Questionnaire (AAQ-TR) in the study. The psychosocial intervention program was conducted once in a week, nine sessions were held in total and each of them took 90-120 min.

RESULTS

A statistically significant difference was found between the points that the elderly people obtained from the prior to and after UCLA Loneliness Scale and WHOQOL-OLD. TR instrument (P < 0.05). Besides, the difference between points gotten from the subdimensions "general," "psychosocial loss," and "psychosocial change" of AYTA-TR Scale was statistically significant.

CONCLUSION

The intervention provided for the psychosocial needs of elderly people led to positive results in loneliness perception, quality of life, and elderly attitudes. Therefore, it is thought that this model is appropriate to be used commonly by nurses in psychosocial care of elderly people.