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Qualitative and Arts-Based Evidence from Children Participating in a Pilot Randomised Controlled Study of School-Based Arts Therapies †
(1) Background: There is limited evidence on the impact of arts therapies as a tool for the prevention of mental health difficulties in childhood. This pilot randomised controlled study aimed to investigate the impact of arts therapies on children’s mental health and well-being; the qualitative and...
Autores principales: | , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
MDPI
2022
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9221561/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35740827 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/children9060890 |
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author | Moula, Zoe Powell, Joanne Karkou, Vicky |
author_facet | Moula, Zoe Powell, Joanne Karkou, Vicky |
author_sort | Moula, Zoe |
collection | PubMed |
description | (1) Background: There is limited evidence on the impact of arts therapies as a tool for the prevention of mental health difficulties in childhood. This pilot randomised controlled study aimed to investigate the impact of arts therapies on children’s mental health and well-being; the qualitative and arts-based evidence is presented in this article. (2) Methods: Sixty-two children (aged 7–10) with mild emotional and behavioral difficulties were recruited across four primary schools and were randomly assigned to either art therapy, music therapy, dance movement therapy, or dramatherapy. All children were interviewed individually after their participation in arts therapies. (3) Results: Children verbally and artistically expressed that they experienced positive changes in their mental health and well-being, such as improved self-expression, safety, empowerment, hope, and optimism for the future. The arts were particularly important for expressing complex emotions and feelings that cannot be easily verbalised. Recommendations are provided to improve the quality of group arts therapies in future interventions, such as through smaller groups, longer sessions, and strategies to protect the therapeutic environment. (4) Conclusions: This study embraced all arts therapies as one research domain and set children’s verbal and non-verbal responses at the heart of outcome evaluation. This article highlights the importance of incorporating qualitative and arts-based methods to capture changes in children’s mental health well-being in future experimental studies. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-9221561 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2022 |
publisher | MDPI |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-92215612022-06-24 Qualitative and Arts-Based Evidence from Children Participating in a Pilot Randomised Controlled Study of School-Based Arts Therapies † Moula, Zoe Powell, Joanne Karkou, Vicky Children (Basel) Article (1) Background: There is limited evidence on the impact of arts therapies as a tool for the prevention of mental health difficulties in childhood. This pilot randomised controlled study aimed to investigate the impact of arts therapies on children’s mental health and well-being; the qualitative and arts-based evidence is presented in this article. (2) Methods: Sixty-two children (aged 7–10) with mild emotional and behavioral difficulties were recruited across four primary schools and were randomly assigned to either art therapy, music therapy, dance movement therapy, or dramatherapy. All children were interviewed individually after their participation in arts therapies. (3) Results: Children verbally and artistically expressed that they experienced positive changes in their mental health and well-being, such as improved self-expression, safety, empowerment, hope, and optimism for the future. The arts were particularly important for expressing complex emotions and feelings that cannot be easily verbalised. Recommendations are provided to improve the quality of group arts therapies in future interventions, such as through smaller groups, longer sessions, and strategies to protect the therapeutic environment. (4) Conclusions: This study embraced all arts therapies as one research domain and set children’s verbal and non-verbal responses at the heart of outcome evaluation. This article highlights the importance of incorporating qualitative and arts-based methods to capture changes in children’s mental health well-being in future experimental studies. MDPI 2022-06-15 /pmc/articles/PMC9221561/ /pubmed/35740827 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/children9060890 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
spellingShingle | Article Moula, Zoe Powell, Joanne Karkou, Vicky Qualitative and Arts-Based Evidence from Children Participating in a Pilot Randomised Controlled Study of School-Based Arts Therapies † |
title | Qualitative and Arts-Based Evidence from Children Participating in a Pilot Randomised Controlled Study of School-Based Arts Therapies † |
title_full | Qualitative and Arts-Based Evidence from Children Participating in a Pilot Randomised Controlled Study of School-Based Arts Therapies † |
title_fullStr | Qualitative and Arts-Based Evidence from Children Participating in a Pilot Randomised Controlled Study of School-Based Arts Therapies † |
title_full_unstemmed | Qualitative and Arts-Based Evidence from Children Participating in a Pilot Randomised Controlled Study of School-Based Arts Therapies † |
title_short | Qualitative and Arts-Based Evidence from Children Participating in a Pilot Randomised Controlled Study of School-Based Arts Therapies † |
title_sort | qualitative and arts-based evidence from children participating in a pilot randomised controlled study of school-based arts therapies † |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9221561/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35740827 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/children9060890 |
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