Introduction: One of the problems of a percentage of the elderly is loneliness, and these elderly people face high distress tolerance and reduced psychological health. This study was conducted to determine the effectiveness of compassion therapy on distress tolerance and social well-being of lonely elderly people.
Methods: The research method was a quasi-experimental design with a pre-test and post-test design. The statistical population included all lonely elderly people in Sanandaj city. Among these elderly people, 30 people were selected as available and randomly assigned to two experimental and control groups. The experimental group received compassion therapy intervention during 8 90-minute sessions. The research tools were the Simons and Gaher (2005) distress tolerance questionnaire and Keys (1998) social well-being questionnaire. The data were analyzed with descriptive statistics (mean and standard deviation) and analysis of covariance using SPSS27 software.
Results: The results showed that compassion therapy was effective on distress tolerance and social well-being of the elderly only in the post-test phase (P < 0.01). Based on the eta coefficient, the amount of this effect on distress tolerance of the elderly was only 46.8 percent and on social well-being was 52.8 percent.
Conclusion: Based on the findings of the study, compassion therapy can be used to increase distress tolerance and social well-being of lonely elderly.