Abstract

• The purpose of the study was to determine the effects of the 8-week, 15-session group art therapy program on self-esteem and mental health status in chronic schizophrenic inpatients. The sample consisted of two groups of chronic schizophrenic inpatients: 10 patients with an average of total disease duration of 8.90 years who participated in a 8-week group art therapy program, and 8 comparison subjects with an average of total disease duration of 8.25 years who did not participate in the program. A pretest-posttest quasiexperimental design was used to assess self-esteem and mental health status at the beginning and at the end of the 8-week, 15-session group art therapy program. The time points for obtaining data were matched for both groups. The effectiveness of the 8-week group art therapy program was assessed by Rosenberg's Self-esteem Scale(Rosenberg, 1965) and SCL-90- R(Derogatis et al., 1973). SPSSWIN 8.0 was utilized for data entry and analysis employing Mann-Whitney U test. The findings of the study indicated the followings: (a) No significant differences were found between two groups in self-esteem and (b) The experimental group showed significantly lower scores in obsessive-compulsive symptom dimension and interpersonal sensitivity symptom dimension on the SCL-90-R than the comparison group after participating in the group art therapy program. In conclusion, the findings showed the possibility of applying group art therapy as an effective nursing intervention for patients with lack of verbal communication skills and social interaction to improve their interpersonal relationship.
• Keywords: Group Art Therapy; Chronic schizophrenic inpatients; Self-esteem; Mental health status

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