Life Review Therapy for Improving the Psychological Wellbeing of Elderly Retired Women in Indonesia

Abstract

Retirement is considered an event that requires individual readjustment, so it can affect the psychological wellbeing of the elderly, especially for women. Better self-esteem can encourage individuals to respect themselves more, however, leading in turn to improvements in the dimension of psychological wellbeing. The aim of this study is to establish how self-esteem influences psychological wellbeing in elderly retired women. This study follows a randomized pretest and posttest, control group design. The research subjects were therefore divided into experimental and control groups, each comprising six people. The experimental group all received life review therapy, whereas the control group did not. All the subjects were elderly retired women with low-to-moderate levels of self-esteem and psychological wellbeing. The study used the Rosenberg self-esteem scale (RSES) and the Ryff psychological wellbeing scale (RPWBS). Data analysis involved a non-parametric Wilcoxon analysis and the Mann–Whitney test. The results revealed that life review therapy improved self-esteem in the experimental group, and there were significant differences between the experimental group and the control group, with the experimental group showing a significant increase in its posttest scores. The results also showed an increase in psychological wellbeing along with self-esteem. It was therefore concluded that life review therapy can improve the psychological wellbeing of elderly retired women in Indonesia