Background: A successful aging pattern indicates a change in attitudes toward aging and life quality improvement, which include the components of general health and life satisfaction. The current study aimed to evaluate the effects of an educational program on successful aging components in the elders.
Materials and methods: A three-stage empirical study was conducted on 72 individuals of 60-75 years old who were randomly divided into two experimental and control groups. A 9-session educational program presenting health-related behaviors, including stress management and interpersonal relationships, was held for the experimental group. Two sessions of neutral topics group discussion were held for the control group. A Demographic Information Questionnaire, General Health Questionare-28 (GHQ-28), Diener's Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS) were used and completed before, immediately after, and two months after the intervention. Independent t-test was used for analysis of obtained data via SPSS software.
Results: The mean (SD) score of general health in the two groups had no significant differences before the intervention [32.40 (14.70) vs. 30.8 (10.04)] (p = 0.60). The mean (SD) scores of general health immediately after intervention and two months later in the experimental group [20.2 (8.8) and 24.1 (8.05)] were significantly lower than control group [31 (9.8) and 30.9 (9.8)] (p < 0.05). The mean (SD) scores of life satisfaction in the both groups showed no significant difference before the intervention [16.8 (5.8) vs. 17.3 (5.5)] (p = 0.39), but were significantly different immediately after [20.4 (5.1) vs. 17.03 (5.1)] and two months after [19.8 (5.1) vs. 17.1 (5.1)] (p = 0.004).
Conclusions: This study confirmed the effectiveness of health-related educational programs in improving elders 'general health and life satisfaction'.
Keywords: Family relations; Iran; personal satisfaction; public health; stress disorders.