Objectives The Objectives of the research is to examine the effect of group reminiscence therapy on depressive symptom, self-esteem, life satisfaction and loneliness in Chinese elderly. Method The eligible 28 subjects were assigned randomly to one of two conditions: reminiscence therapy as the experiment group, a waiting-list as the control group. The subjects who were arranged to the experiment group consisted of six weekly sessions of 90 min each. During each weekly session, the memories recalled focused on a different theme. The control group participants will not receive any emotional related treatment. We use Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS), Rosenberg self-esteem scale (SES), Life Satisfaction Index A (LSI-A) and Russell’s UCLA Loneliness Scale to assess the depressive symptom, self esteem, life satisfaction and sense of loneliness respectively. we also designed behavioral experiment to examine the effect of reminiscence therapy on depressive symptom.. Data collection will occur on the baseline, after intervention immediately (as for post-test), and three months after the intervention (as for follow-up). In addition, we will use some scales developed by ourselves which are used to assess the participants’ attitude and compliance towards the intervention. Result The depressive symptom of experiment group was improved significantly after six weeks therapy. But it did not maintain in three month follow-up. The behavioral experiment demonstrated this too. The self esteem, life satisfaction and sense of loneliness did not be improved after six weeks therapy. There are non significant correlation between scores of acceptance and GDS, and scores of engagement and GDS. Conclusion Reminiscence therapy can reduce the depressive symptom of the elderly significantly. But it did not improve the self esteem, life satisfaction and sense of loneliness. Compared to the previous studies, we speculate it may be attributed to duration of the intervention. Because these three qualities are relative stability, we need to adopt longer intervention to make it effective on them. We found participants’ attitude did not effect the consequent. We use the correlation between scores of acceptance and engagement to test this setting. But we found it is also not significant. it may indicate this setting is not successful. It needs further studies in future. To be conclusion, reminiscence therapy can improve the depressive symptom effectively. It can be used in nursing home or community organization. It needs further studies to examine whether it is effective to self esteem, life satisfaction and sense of loneliness in the elderly in future.
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