Strengthening Resilience Affecting the Mental Health and Happiness of the Elderly in a Community in Bangkok

Abstract

This research aimed to: 1. Compare the mental health and happiness of elderly people who received strengthening enhauncing resilience in the experimental and control groups, to 2. compare the mental health and happiness of elderly people before and after the strengthening enhauncing resilience. The sample consisted of 50 elderly people in a community in Bangkok, who were recruited by purposive sampling and tested for strenthening enhauncing resilience. They were assigned to Group A and Group B. The aim was to ensure that the mean score of the strenthening enhauncing resilience in both groups were not different. Then, they were assigned by drawing lots to be the experimental and the control group. The instruments were: Set 1: The Strengthening Enhauncing Resilience test; Set 2: The Mental Health test; Set 3: The Short Happiness test; and Set 4: The Strengthening Enhauncing Resilience activity model. Content validity for Set 1 and 4 was .67 and .79, respectively. Validity for Set 2 and 3 were not assessed because they were developed by the Department of Mental Health. Reliability was measured using the Cronbach’s alpha coefficient. The reliability of Set 1: The Strengthening Enhauncing Resilience test, 2. Mental Health test and 3. Short Happiness tests had values of .87, .83 and .70, respectively. 4. The activity model for Strengthening Enhauncing Resilience was not found to be reliable. The activity model was a 4-act drama performance in which the sample performed 4 times. The analysis used MANOVA statistics. The results of the research found that the elderly who received strengthening enhauncing resilience in the experimental group had higher mental health and happiness scores than the control group, significantly at the .01 level. And after the elderly who received strengthening enhauncing resilience, their mental health and happiness scores were significantly higher than before receiving the strengthening enhauncing resilience experiment at the .01 level.