Effects of Mindfulness Based Elder Care (MBEC) on Psychological and Spiritual Well Being of Institutional Seniors With Disability

Background: Existing literature indicates that seniors with disabilities living in long-term care institutions are confronted with such issues as changes in their living environment, institutionalized living schedules, and reduced social interaction, which may affect their mental health and cause spiritual disturbances. In recent years, mindfulness therapy has been increasingly proven to effectively improve individuals' mental health and spiritual well-being. However, the effectiveness of the therapy for seniors with disabilities admitted to residential institutions needs to be further verified by empirical studies.

Purpose: This study aims to verify the effectiveness of the mindfulness-based elder care (MBEC) therapy developed by McBee (2008) in improving the psychological and spiritual well-being of seniors with disabilities living in residential long-term care institutions in Taiwan.

Methods: A Randomized control trial was used. The subjects enrolled in this study were the seniors with disability in the residential long-term care institutions in the northern and central part of Taiwan. The inclusion criteria were the seniors with disabilities who (1) lived in a care institution for over 3 months; (2) were aged 65 years or above; (3) failed to obtain a full score for Barthel Index; (4) were able to communicate in Mandarin or Taiwanese; and (5) had no history of mental illness. According to the intervention scheme, the experimental group was offered eight 50-minute courses once a week, while the control group maintained routine activities. In terms of the evaluation of intervention effectiveness, basic data collection tables, and the Barthel Index were used to collect the information of the included seniors with disabilities on basic demography, and ability to perform daily activities. The Geriatric Depression Scale-Short-Short Form (GDS-SF), State Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI), and Spiritual Well-Being Scale (SWBS) were also adopted to understand the included seniors with disabilities depression, anxiety, and spiritual well-being. The data were collected four times: before the intervention, in the middle of the intervention (the fourth week), at the end of the intervention (the eighth week), and the follow-up four weeks after the intervention (the twelfth week). The collected data was analyzed by SPSS 22.0. Descriptive statistics and the independent samples t-test were used to identify the homogeneity of the two groups, and the linear mixed model was used to compare the improvement results of the experimental group alone and the two groups at different time points.