The Effect of the Mental Health Promotion Program on Depression of Older Adults in the Community

Abstract

The purpose of this quasi-experimental research is to examine the effect of a mental health promotion program on the depression of older adults. The purposive sampling of the samples were equals and 60 years older, who were receiving health services at the rehabilitation center The samples were randomly assigned and match-paired according to gender for both the experimental and control group, with 30 persons in each group. The experimental group participated in the mental health promotion program for eight weeks, 60 to 90 minutes once a week. On the other hand, the control group received nursing care as usual. The research instruments were a demographic questionnaire and the Center for Epidemiologic Studies-Depression Scale (CES-D) questionnaire. The CES-D questionnaire showed a Cronbach’s alpha coefficient reliability of .87. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the frequency, percentage, and chi-squared test. The mean score for depression for the experimental group was compared in terms of the pretest and posttest using dependent t-test. Additionally, the mean score for depression between the experimental and control group was compared using independent t-test. The results revealed that 1) after the experimental group participated in the program, the mean score for depression (M = 14.90, SD = 2.59) was significantly lower than before participating in the program (M = 20.13, SD = 3.10) (t = 17.11, p<.001); and 2) the mean difference in the mean score for depression between the pretest and posttest for the experimental group (1 = 5.23, SD = 1.67) was significantly greater than for the control group (2 = 1.86, SD = 2.14) (t = 14.28, p<.001) In conclusion, the research findings showed that the mental health promotion program effectively decreased depression among older adults.