The Effectiveness of Self-healing Training on Death Anxiety and Sleep Quality of Elderly Women Living in Sadeghiye Nursing Homes in Isfahan City

Objectives: aging refers to one of the most critical stages of human development, with its own characteristics and conditions. In the meantime, death anxiety and sleep quality are among the most common mental health issues in the elderly since that proper intervention can improve self-care and sleep quality in the elderly. Hence, this study was aimed at determination the effectiveness of self-healing approach in sleep quality and death anxiety of elderly women living in Sadeghiye nursing homes in Isfahan city. Materials and Methods: This was a quasi-experimental research design of the type of pretest, posttest, and follow-up with a control group. The study’s statistical population included our elderly women between the ages of 60 and 70 years old living in a Sadeghiye nursing home in Isfahan city (Iran) in 2020. During the public call in the boarding nursing home, 40 volunteer elderly women were chosen through available sampling and observation of the inclusion and exclusion criteria and they were randomly assigned to two 20-people groups. Participants were assessed by The Collett-Lester Fear of Death Scale (CL-FODS) and Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI). The experimental group underwent a 12-session self-healing intervention while the control group was assigned to a waiting list without receiving any intervention. In the end, both groups were re-measured and the follow-up stage was performed after 45 days. The results of pre-test, post-test, and follow-up were analyzed by multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) by means of SPSS software version 24. Findings: The results revealed that self-healing training significantly improves the components of death anxiety (including self-death, self-dying, others-death, and dying of others) and a number of sleep quality variable subscales (including mental quality, delay in falling asleep, sleep disorders and use of sleeping pills) in elderly participated in the experimental group compared to the control group (p<0.05). These effects significantly remained constant in the follow-up phase, in the in the components of self-death, mental quality, delay in falling asleep, sleep disorders and the use of sleeping pills (p<0.05). Nevertheless, no significant difference was found in the post-test and follow-up stages in the other subscales of sleep quality and death anxiety (p> 0.05). Conclusion: The results of the present study showed that self-healing training to strengthen the role of the individual, reduces perceptual anxiety and improves sleep quality of elderly women living in nursing homes. While representing new horizons in psychological interventions, it may be employed as an effective educational method for improving the lifestyle and mental health of the elderly living in the nursing home.