The Effectiveness of Optimist Memory Telling on Death Anxiety and the Sense of Aging in Elderly

Introduction: The aging phenomenon is caused by the natural time course leading to physiological, psychological and social changes, and is usually associated with death anxiety and sense of aging. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the effect of optimist memory telling on death anxiety and sense of aging in elderly people. Methods: This study was a semi-experimental research through pre-post-test with a control group. The statistical population included all the elderly residents of nursing homes in Kermanshah during 2017, among which 40 people were randomly selected and were assigned to two groups of experimental and control (each group of 20). The experimental group participated in 8 sessions of optimist memory telling treatment, each lasting for 60 min. Data were analyzed using SPSS 21, covariance analysis method, and T-test. Results: The results indicated that there was a significant difference between the mean death anxiety and the sense of aging in the experimental and control groups. In other words, training optimist memory telling reduced the anxiety caused by death and the sense of aging in the elderly (P 0.05). Conclusion: Considering the effect of training optimist memory telling on decreasing death anxiety and the aging sensation of the elderly, it is recommended that therapists and psychologists use this method to reduce death anxiety and the sense of aging in the elderly.