Humor Therapy: Relieving Chronic Pain and Enhancing Happiness for Older Adults

Table 2

Comparison of experimental & control groups: baseline (week 1) versus postintervention (week 8).

	Experimental group (𝑛 = 36)		𝑃-value𝛽^2	Control group (𝑛 = 34)		𝑃-value𝛽^3	𝑃-value𝛽^1	𝑃-value𝛽^4
	Baseline (week 1) Mean ± SD	Post interventio (week 8) Mean ± SD		Baseline (week 1) Mean ± SD	Post intervention (week 8) Mean ± SD
Pain	5.19 ± 2.12	3.22 ± 1.48	0.000*	5.5 ± 1.88	5.18 ± 1.62	0.150	0.612	0.000*
Happiness	16.19 ± 5.14	23.03 ± 3.40	0.000*	16.82 ± 4.9	17.00 ± 4.65	0.958	0.628	0.000*
UCLA (Loneliness)	42.50 ± 8.25	39.44 ± 7.96	0.001*	43.29 ± 9.14	42.85 ± 8.92	0.291	0.629	0.096
Life Satisfaction	10.50 ± 2.88	12.67 ± 2.22	0.000*	10.12 ± 3.21	10.32 ± 2.76	0.470	0.736	0.001*

𝛽¹ Experimental versus control group at baseline (week 1); (Mann-Whitney U Test).
𝛽² Experimental group (baseline versus postintervention); (Wilcoxon Signed Ranks Test).
𝛽³ Control group (baseline versus postintervention); (Wilcoxon Signed Ranks Test).
𝛽⁴ Experimental group versus control group postintervention (week 8); (Mann-Whitney U Test).
*A 𝑃-value of <.05 was considered statistically significant.