THE EFFECT OF SPIRITUAL COUNSELING ON INCREASED ELDERLY SPIRITUALITY

Abstract

Spiritual aspects are important parts of the life of the elderly. The current research aimed to assess the effectiveness of spiritual counseling for elders spirituality. Method: The research design used was a quasi-experiment on 34 elderly divided into twogroups at a nursing home in Pekanbaru. Questionnaires were asked before and after the spiritual counseling intervention. The data analysis used was the Wilcoxon analysis and the Mann Whitney U-Test. Result: The median of elderly spirituality after being given spirituality counseling in the experiment group was 10.00 with a standard deviation of 1.074. The median after without being given spirituality counseling in the control group was 8.00, with a standart deviation of 1.364. The current study result shows an increase in spirituality in the experimental group and that spiritual counseling is an effective method in increasing the elderly spirituality with a p-value of 0.04. Conclusion: Spiritual counseling adoption for the elderly is important to increase their spirituality.