Document Type : Research/Original/Regular

Authors

• Arash Ghandehari ¹
• Ilnaz Sajjadian ²
• Ali Mehdad ³

¹ PhD Student, Department of psychology, Isfahan (Khorasgan) Branch , Islamic Azad University, Isfahan, Iran

² Associate professor, Department of clinical psychology, Community Health Research Center, Isfahan(khorasgan)Branch, Islamic Azad university, Isfahan, Iran

³ Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, Isfahan (Khorasgan) Branch, Islamic Azad University, Isfahan, Iran.

Abstract

The increasing number of female heads of households in Iran and the many harms that are inflicted on them, it is better to raise the mental health of these people among psychologists and specialists. Therefore, the aim of the present study was the effect of logotherapy on the death anxiety, feeling of loneliness, and mental wellbeing of women heads of households. The research method was semi-experimental with pre-test-post-test and follow-up with the control group. The statistical population was all female heads of households referring to the Welfare Department of the city of Isfahan, 30 of whom were selected by purposive sampling and assigned to two experimental and control groups. The experimental group received Frankel's (1986) logotherapy intervention during 10 sessions (90 minutes) and the control group received the intervention. The data in the pre-test-post-test stages and follow-up by Templer's death health questionnaire (1970), Russell et al.'s loneliness (1980) and Keyes and Magyarmo's mental well-being (2003). The result of the analysis of variance with repeated measurement showed that logotherapy had a significant effect on reducing death, loneliness and increasing the mental well-being of female heads of the household and this effect was sustained up to the stage.

Highlights

Considering the official statistics at hand and the noticeable growth in the population of women heads of households in Iran and other countries over the last decade, which is also expected in the future, it is imperative to deal with the harms facing those women (Dorahaki & Noubakht, 2021). Female heads of families undergo more stressful situations than the rest of the society averagely does. The reactions and responses of this vulnerable social segment to the stresses of life need to be studied and managed. One of these stresses is death anxiety, which is experienced by everybody depending on his or her situation. The anxiety occurs as people think of their own or their dear ones’ death (Pandya & Kathuria, 2021). In this case, women are more anxious than men (Taywode, 2018), and women heading a family are even more so because, as females, they naturally have to incur more tensions (Khani et al., 2017).

Feeling lonely is another negative emotion that women heads of households face, aggravating their death anxiety (Bahadori et al., 2021). These spouseless women feel not only lonely but also rejected and ununderstood by others (Majdabadi et al., 2019). Once combined with death anxiety, loneliness can adversely affect women’s mental and psychological wellbeing, which should be paid special attention. Mental wellbeing, indeed, depends on how individuals perceive and evaluate their quality of life, and the lack of this wellbeing is an unpleasant feeling experienced in response to the quantitative and qualitative shortcomings in one’s social relations (Drennan et al., 2008).

 So far, many psychological and educational interventions have been practiced to provide mental wellbeing for women heads of households and prevent their loneliness and anxiety, but these therapeutic measures have failed to eliminate or effectively control negative thoughts and anxious states. There is, therefore, a need for a therapeutic approach which can deeply penetrate into thoughts and beliefs so as to make them meaningful. In this regard, one may refer to the logotherapeutic intervention proposed by Frankl (1986), who believes shortages and limitations can sometimes arouse people to seek meaning and sometimes demotivate them to do it. The efficacy of logotherapy has been observed in mitigating death anxiety (Esmailpour et al., 2022; Kiarasi et al., 2021) and loneliness (Nazarifar & Ghaneifar, 2020; Kuhpayehzadeh et al., 2019) as well as improving mental wellbeing (Sarhangi et al., 2023; Mortell, 2020). As the literature suggests, most of the studies about death anxiety, loneliness and mental wellbeing have been conducted on patients, while there is a research gap in the case of women heads of households. With regard to the importance of the issue and with the aim of protecting those women from social limitations and adversities, this study is an attempt to partially fill the gap by focusing on how group logotherapy can help family-running women overcome their negative thoughts and emotions.

Method

This is a semi-empirical study conducted in a pretest-posttest format with a control group for comparison purposes. The research population included all the women heads of households referring to the Public Wellbeing Office in the city of Isfahan during 2022. Of them, 30 were selected by the purposeful sampling method and then randomly and equally assigned to a test group and a control group. The test group received collective logotherapy (Frankl, 1986) in ten 90-minute sessions each per week, but no intervention was provided for the control group. The measuring tools in this study were the questionnaires on death anxiety (Templar, 1970), feeling of loneliness (Russell et al., 1980), and mental wellbeing (Keyes & Margiano, 2003). Also, the data were analyzed with the repeated measures ANOVA and the SPSS software version 24.

Results

According to the results of measurements in three stages, the scores on death anxiety, loneliness and mental wellbeing were significantly different (P-value < .01). Moreover, the test and control groups were significantly different in terms of their scores on the three variables (P-value < .01). In general, the time-group interaction was significant (P-value < .01).

Table 1. The results of the repeated measures ANOVA for the scores on the research variables

According to Table 1, about 56.4% of the variance in the dependent variable of death anxiety in the test group is explained by the independent variable (i.e. Frankl’s logotherapy). In the same group, about 91% of the variance in the dependent variable of mental wellbeing is explained by Frankl’s logotherapy, as the independent variable. Logotherapy also accounts for about 24.9% of the variance in the dependent variable of loneliness. To continue, Table 2 compares the study groups through Bonferroni’s post hoc test.

Table 2. The results of Bonferroni’s post hoc test to compare the

groups in terms of death anxiety, feeling of loneliness and mental wellbeing

Based on the results reported in Table 2, the intervention practiced for the test group made significant changes in the three studied variables.

Conclusion

The results of this study point to the role of logotherapy in reducing the death anxiety of women heads of households. In this respect, the results are in agreement with the findings of Esmailpour et al. (2022) and Kiarasi et al. (2021). To account for how death anxiety is affected, one may say that logotherapy sessions are dedicated to self-recognition lessons and a delve into the human nature and man’s inevitable obligations toward life, which leads to the change of attitudes about life as a bounty whose value is due to the death that follows. This study also found the role of logotherapy in the reduction of the loneliness that female family heads feel. This finding is in line with the research by Nazarifar and Ghaneifar (2020) and Kuhpayehzadeh et al. (2019). The efficacy of logotherapy in this case is due to its awareness-raising function which helps individuals realize the concepts of free will, responsibility and life and, at the same time, accept their own self. It also involves trainings on how to find meaning, which helps one tolerate the sufferings of life, such as loneliness. Another finding of this study is the positive effect of logotherapy on the mental wellbeing of those women. This puts the study in line with the research by Sarhangi et al. (2023) and Mortell (2020). As a justification for this role of logotherapy, one may refer to its capability for giving women a broadened view of themselves and the world around as well as shedding light on the features that give meaning to their life. This makes women strong enough to cope with and overcome the hardships of life.

Considering the positive effects of logotherapy on the variables of this research, those in charge of wellbeing and consultation centers are suggested to hold logotherapeutic training courses so as to deal with the death anxiety, loneliness and mental wellbeing of women heads of households, thus enhancing their psychological traits and saving them from social isolation.

Keywords

• Logotherapy
• death anxiety
• Loneliness
• mental well-being

Main Subjects

• Woman and family