Examining the effects of hand massage and gaming activity on loneliness, comfort and psychological well-being levels in the elderly

The sample of the study, which was conducted as a randomized controlled study to examine the effects of hand massage and game activity on loneliness, comfort and psychological well-being levels in the elderly, consisted of 20 hand massage, 20 game activities and 20 control group elderly people. The data are collected from the elderly living in three separate nursing homes in Mersin between July 2022-May 2023 by applying the "Elderly Identification Form (EIF)" as well as making use of the "Loneliness Scale for the Elderly (LSE)", "General Comfort Scale (GCS)" and "Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Health Scale (WE-MHS)" as pre-test. The hand massage group received hand massage for a total of 20 minutes, 10 minutes on each hand, three days a week for four weeks. The game activity (Jenga) group is made to play the Jenga game once a week for four weeks. The control group received the institution's service and activities. In the fifth week, the LSE, GCS, and WE-MHS are applied again to the hand massage, game activity and control groups as a post-test. The data set is evaluated with the Chi-Square, Wilcoxon, Kruskal Wallis H and the Mann-Whitney U tests. It is observed that the loneliness, comfort and the psychological well-being levels of the elderly who received hand massage and joined game activity (Jenga) increased significantly (p<0.05). On the other hand, it is determined that game activity (Jenga) yields more positive contribution to the comfort and the psychological well-being levels of the elderly than the hand massage application (p<0.05). Thus, it is concluded that hand massage and game activity (Jenga) can be used to increase the comfort and psychological well-being levels of the elderly.