Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
X. INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM OF SOCIAL AND APPLIED GERONTOLOGY, Antalya, Türkiye, 21 - 23 Kasım 2022, ss.26
Positive Psychology Interventions in Aging Studies
Introduction/Purpose: People's emotional experiences change throughout their life cycle. Besides, older people represent a more vulnerable group to loss of happiness and subjective well-being, which can lead to the onset of emotional disorders such as depression and anxiety due to normative age-related losses in various domains. Therefore, it is necessary to help older people develop strategies and activities that will enable them to maintain their physical and emotional well-being. At this point, positive psychology has an important role. The aim of this study is to discuss the studies on positive psychology interventions (PPI) in the field of old age in the English literature, and to reveal the general tendencies, conceptual and methodological features of the existing studies.
Method: The document analysis technique, which is a qualitative research design, was used in the study. Content analysis technique was used in the analysis of the data. In this study, Web of Science, EBSCO-CINAHL, Academic Search Ultimate, MEDLINE Complete, PubMed and Scopus, which are frequently used in health, care and aging studies, and PsycArticles databases, which are frequently used in psychology and psychiatry studies, and Google Scholar search engine, were used in this study. Within the scope of inclusion and exclusion criteria, 12 articles were examined.
Results: Three concepts have often been used in research: gratitude, positive emotions, and creating well-being. The most frequently used technique in research is quantitative research based on pretest-posttest analysis (42%). From the contents of the intervention; doing a kindness, forgiveness practices, remembering practices, gratitude activities, three good and three funny things, and strengths activities are the most commonly used. The most frequently used application techniques are; writing, meditation, psychoeducation, group discussions, and assignment.
Conclusion: As a result; studies have mostly reported positive results of their PPIs. Only two studies showed that PPIs did not yield effective results. The results of the study draw attention to necessary of increasing the sample size, conducting longitudinal studies, and supporting the studies with qualitative interviews.
Key Words: Aging, Positive Psychology Interventions, Gerontology, Content Analysis.