Walking and talking activities as nursing therapy for improving quality of life among older adults

Objective

The most prominent problem resulting from decreased body function in older adults is declining quality of life. Walking and talking among older adults in peer group may become a nursing therapy to improve their quality of life. The objective of this study was to identify the impact of walking and talking intervention of quality of life among community dwelling older adults in Depok, Indonesia.

Method

This study applied quasi-experimental design with 43 and 40 older adults in the intervention and control group, respectively. The participants were selected using multistage random sampling method.

Results

Based on t test, the average quality of life score of older adults improved more significantly in the intervention group than that in the control group, with p value of 0.003, its mean p value < α, respectively. An ANCOVA analysis was used to detect confounding factors. The result showed that all characteristics have a p value of > 0.05, which means there were no confounding factors warranting further investigation.

Conclusions

It was concluded that walking and talking therapy in peer group significantly increase the quality of life of older adults.