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Spiritual counselling mitigates loneliness and promotes affect balance for older empty nester couples: A study in some international cities
Author(s) -
Pandya Samta P.
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
counselling and psychotherapy research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.38
H-Index - 32
eISSN - 1746-1405
pISSN - 1473-3145
DOI - 10.1002/capr.12342
Subject(s) - loneliness , ucla loneliness scale , affect (linguistics) , psychological intervention , psychosocial , psychology , interdependence , intervention (counseling) , balance (ability) , clinical psychology , test (biology) , social psychology , psychiatry , sociology , social science , paleontology , communication , neuroscience , biology
This article reports a study examining the impact of a spiritual counselling programme (SCP) on older empty nester couples' loneliness experiences and affect balance. Since empty nesters are usually couples with a greater likelihood of interdependence in the psychosocial domains, there is a need to examine interdependent effects or actor–partner interdependent effects of interventions. Twenty‐four online SCP sessions were conducted throughout the year with the intervention group couples who were assessed on loneliness and affect balance outcomes pre‐ and post‐test compared with couples in the waitlist control group. The impact of SCP was significant, with lower loneliness post‐test scores and higher affect balance for couples from Russian and European cities, Christians, those who were well educated, in good health, those who attended at least 75% of the SCP sessions and regularly practised at home. Number of SCP sessions attended and home practice mediated the relationship between demographic predictors and outcomes. Results of the actor–partner interdependence model analyses indicated that intervention group couples' post‐test outcome measure scores were mutually interdependent and associated. Wives whose husbands attended more SCP lessons and regularly practised at home were more likely to do so themselves. This investigation fills the gap in empty nest literature of examining the efficacy of a specifically designed intervention for empty nesters.