The effect of participation in recreational activities on the quality of life and unlality

It is observed that there is a decrease in the activities of individuals in their daily lives with aging. One of the necessary studies for the elderly to survive independently in the society is to help them reach the situation where they can meet their needs. In this context, it will be beneficial to benefit from recreational activities, which are factors that increase the mobility of the elderly. For this reason, the aim of this study was to investigate the effect of 8-weeks recreational activities of nursing homes on their quality of life and level of loneliness. For this purpose, this study was carried out with the elderly who were staying in the nursing homes of SSCPA in Bolu. The pre-test, post-test and control group quasi-experimental design, which is one of the quantitative research designs, constitutes the method of this study. In the study, which was carried out with a total of 50 people, 25 of whom were the experimental group and 25 of which were the control group, the Quality of Life Scale for the Elderly adapted by Türkoğlu and Adıbelli and the Loneliness Scale for the Elderly adapted by Akgül and Yeşilyaprak were used.The SPSS Statistic 24.0 program, which was adapted to Turkish in English and collected from the scales with validity-reliability studies, was entered. It was determined that the data were not normally distributed in the experimental and control groups. For this reason, Mann Whitney U was used for two-group analysis and Kruskal Wallis was used for analyzes involving more than two groups, Spearman Correlation was used to examine the relationship of sub-dimensions. As a result of the analysis of the data, it was determined that the demographic variables did not make a significant difference between the groups in the pretest and posttests of the participants in the control group. In the experimental group, significant differences were found between the pretest and posttests in favor of the posttests. It has also been determined that recreational activities have positive effects on individuals' quality of life. For this reason, in order to use recreational activities in the nursing homes of SSCPA, it is recommended to provide in-service training to individuals working in these institutions.