The Effectiveness of Laughter Therapy by using Wayang Kulit (Shadow Puppets) Video Media to Reduce Elderly Anxiety during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Introduction: The elderly have the risk of physical and psychosocial disorders such as anxiety. Laughter therapy is an intervention that can be applied to reduce anxiety among the elderly. It is a non-pharmacological therapy that utilizes laughter to reduce the problem of physical and mental disorders. The study aimed to determine the effectiveness of laughter therapy by using Wayang Kulit’s (Shadow Puppets)video to reduce elderly anxiety during the COVID-19 pandemic. M ethods: The research method used a quasi-experimental with the pre-posttest without a control group using a dependent sample test as many 34 samples were taken by consecutive sampling according to the criteria. The population of this study was the elderly aged 30-74 years. Results: This study showed that laughter therapy using Wayang Kulit’s video effectively reduced elderly anxiety with a p=0.001 (<0,05), which showed the elderly during the COVID-19 pandemic. Conclusion: The writer suggests that health services will make laughter therapy interventions in the integrated healthcare center (Posyandu) program to reduce elderly anxiety. One way is to create a schedule for playing this video in an integrated healthcare center.