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Ko and Hyun: Effects of Laughter Therapy on Pain, Depression, and Quality of Life of Elderly People with Osteoarthritis
Original Article

Journal of Korean Academy of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing 2013; 22(4): 359-367.

Published online: 31 December 2013

DOI: https://doi.org/10.12934/jkpmhn.2013.22.4.359

Effects of Laughter Therapy on Pain, Depression, and Quality of Life of Elderly People with Osteoarthritis

Yeon-Ja Ko1, Mi-Yeul Hyun2

1Seogwipo Medical Center, Jeju Special Self-Governing Province, Jeju, Korea.

2College of Nursing, Jeju National University, Jeju, Korea.

Corresponding author: Hyun, Mi-Yeul. College of Nursing, Jeju National University, 102 Jejudaehak-ro, Jeju 690-756, Korea. Tel: +82-64-754-3886, Fax: +82-64-702-2686, hpeople@jejunu.ac.kr

Received 25 April 2013       Revised 6 October 2013       Accepted 23 December 2013

© 2013 The Korean Academy of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing

(open-access):

This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of a laughter therapy on pain, depression, and quality of life of elderly people with osteoarthritis.

Methods

A quasi-experimental, nonequivalent control group pretest-posttest design was used. Participants (n=60) included older adults who were diagnosed with osteoarthritis and received treatment at the out patient departments of two different hospitals. Data were collected from March 9 to 30, 2011. Experimental group (n=30) participated in laughter therapy four times, once a week for 50 min per session. Questionnaires were used to measure pretest and posttest levels of pain, depression, and quality of life.

Results

At the end of four-week intervention, pain (F=11.32, p=.001) and depression (F=10.77, p=.002) were significantly decreased in the experimental group. Quality of life (F=6.28, p=.015) were significantly improve in the experimental group.

Conclusion

The study results suggest that the laughter therapy is an effective intervention to reduce the pain and depression, and to improve quality of life. It seems that this program can widely be utilized as one of nursing intervention programs for the elderly people with osteoarthritis.

Keywords: Laughter therapy, Osteoarthritis, Pain, Depression, Quality of life

Figures and Tables

Table 1
Homogeneity Test of General Characteristics of Subjects (N=60)
jkapmhn-22-359-i001

Exp.=experimental group; Cont.=control group.

†Fisher's exact probability test.

Table 2
Homogeneity Test of Dependent Variables between Experimental and Control Group (N=60)
jkapmhn-22-359-i002

Exp.=experimental group; Cont.=control group.

Table 3
Comparison of Pain, Depression and Quality of Life between Experimental and Control Group (N=60)
jkapmhn-22-359-i003

Exp.=experimental group; Cont.=control group.

†F-value of ANCOVA with pre-test value as covariate.

Notes

This article is based on a part of the first author's master's thesis from Jeju National University.

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