Abstract

This study aimed at proving the effects of a laughter therapy program on mental health. Subjects of this study were 25 people who enrolled in a program at the Lifelong Education Center affiliated with Chonnam National University. The researcher delivered a six-session laughter therapy program from September 1st to October 13th, 2008, once a week for 150 minutes from 7 to 9:30p.m. Korean version of Symptom Checklist-90-R (SCL-90-R) was used to see effects of the program under a scientific-subject design. The collected data were analyzed using SPSS 12.0 program, and t-test and analysis of variance (ANOVA) were conducted to verify effects of the laughter therapy program on mental health. The following results were obtained in the study. As results of this tests conducted before and after the program, somatization, obsessive-compulsiveness, interpersonal sensitivity, depression, anxiety, hostility, phobic anxiety, paranoid ideation, psychoticism, global severity index (G.S.I), positive symptom total (P.S.T) and positive symptom distress index (P.S.D.I) displayed significantly lower figures after the theory program data. In conclusion, the subjects displayed significant decreases in 9 scales of SCL-90-R after receiving the laughter therapy program. This indicates that the laughter therapy program has a positive effect on the subjects' mental health. (Korean J Str Res 2010;18:287∼294)

• Keywords: Laughter, Laughter therapy, Mntal health;