Elderly people often have psychosocial problems such as loneliness, feelings of sadness, depression and anxiety. anxiety is one of the most frquent mental health problems. Factors that can cause anxiety, namely negative experiences in the past and irrational thoughts. Anxiety of the elderly is characterized by difficulty sleeping or resting, nervous, often trembling, disappointed, and worried, often feeling worried when there is a small problem. Anxiety in the elderly can be overcome by conducting nursing interventions in the form of progressive relaxation therapy. This study aims to determine the effect of progressive relaxation on decreasing anxiety levels in the elderly in the Dharma Bhakti Nursing Home Surakarta City. This research is a quantitative research type with a quasi-experimental method, and a pre-test post test with control group design. the place of research was conducted at the Dharma Bhakti nursing home in Surakarta the time in March 2019, a sample of 17 elderly experimental group and 17 elderly for the control group used a experiencing moderate and mild anxiety. Anxiety instrument used by Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scala (HARS) and tools used to relax chairs with backrests or beds, how to practice therapy with leaflet media, data analysis using paired sample t-test. the average results of the experimental group pre (17.29) post (7.24) p-value (0,000), the control group pre-average (14,18), post (14,47) p-value (0,289). Progressive relaxation has a significant influence on decreasing anxiety levels in the elderly.

Keywords: Anxiety, Elderly, Progressive relaxation