The Effect of Laughter Therapy on Anxiety, Depression and Stress of Cancer Patients Admitted to Long-Term Care Unit

Objective: This study is based on a parallax design before and after a non-equivalent control group to examine the effects oflaughter therapy on the anxiety, depression, and stress in patients with cancer admitted to a nursing hospital. Design: A randomized controlled trial. Methods: Data collection was conducted on 34 patients who agreed to participate in the study among patients admitted to ECancer Hospital from September to November 2018. Laughter treatment interventions were performed three times a week for 50minutes each and a total of eight times. In this study, a tool developed by Spielberger was used to measure state anxiety, a tooldeveloped by Beck was used to measure depression, and the Perceived Stress Scaled eveloped by Cohen was used to measure stress. Results: Anxiety was significantly lower in the experimental group than in the control group (F=10.74, p=0.003). Depression was lower in both the experimental group and the control group that did not participate in the laughter therapy intervention and was notsignificant (F=0.58, p=0.451). Stress was significantly lower in the experimental group than in the control group (F=4.36,p=0.045). Conclusions: The results of this study suggest that laughter therapy has a positive effect on reducing anxiety and stress in patientswith cancer admitted to nursing hospitals.