Abstract
Background: Anxiety and loneliness are prevalent psychological issues faced by older adults. To tackle these concerns, group reminiscence therapy has been widely recognized as an effective non-pharmacological form of intervention. Despite its proven efficacy, the implementation of this therapy normally requires professional guidance, limiting its accessibility to specialized institutions such as hospitals. Objective: In this study, the objective is to empirically validate the effectiveness of a reminiscence therapy-based hybrid board game, Journey of Memories, in reducing anxiety and loneliness among older adults. Method: We conducted a 12-day randomized controlled study. A total of 38 elderly participants aged between 61 and 75 were recruited. They were randomly assigned to an experimental group (consisting of 20 individuals) and a control group (consisting of 18 individuals). Participants in the experimental group were required to engage in three sessions of the Journey of Memories hybrid board game intervention, with a 5-day interval between each session. No intervention was administered to participants in the control group. Results: The results found that after 3 sessions of board game-based reminiscence therapy, 20 participants in the experimental group showed significant reductions in anxiety levels (the State Anxiety subscale of State-Trait Anxiety Inventory [STAI-S] average scores decreased from 43.83 to 41.05, P = 0.000, the Trait Anxiety subscale State-Trait Anxiety Inventory [STAI-T] average scores decreased from 46.72 to 43.61, P = 0.030) and loneliness levels (UCLA Loneliness Scale [UCLA] average scores decreased from 39.11 to 36.11, P = 0.002). In addition, participants reported high scores of usability (3.77/5) and user experience (4.08/5). Conclusion: These results demonstrate that the hybrid board game can effectively reduce older adults' feelings of anxiety and loneliness while providing a satisfactory user experience, motivating them to participate in group reminiscence therapy.
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