Integrated Well-being Intervention Program (IWI) on the level of depression and psychological well-being of widows in India: A pilot study

Pages:300-304
John Lourdusamy and Sally Caballero (Department of Psychology, The Graduate School, University of Santo Tomas, Manila, Espana, Manila, Philippines)

Widows in India are different from the rest of the world because of their religious beliefs and cultural values. Once the husband dies, the woman loses her identity and suffers social death. They are considered as “bad luck” and cursed (Chandrasekhar & Ghosh, 2018). They are not allowed to remarry. Many times young widows are sexually abused by the members of their own family. They face multiple forms of social discrimination. Recognizing the need of a therapeutic intervention for widows who are suffering from mild to moderate depression, the researcher developed the Integrated Well-being Intervention program (IWI) integrating the Mindfulness -Based Cognitive Theory and Well-Being Theory to enhance psychological well-being of widows and reduce depression. A feasibility test was conducted with ten widows who were in moderate depression. Data were collected through Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-II) and Ryff Scales of Psychological Well-being (SPWB), semi-structure interview as well as focus group discussion were conducted, the data were statistically analyzed by using descriptive statistics, mean, standard deviation, and paired sample t-test. Pre-test and post-test scores of the study showed significant differences (p = .001) at 0.05 level. The intervention was subjected to expert’s validation and was positively received by the participants. The results of the pilot study showed a significant decrease in depression and increase in the psychological well-being of the widows.