ABSTRACT

Background: The aim of this study was to investigate the feasibility and effectiveness of a single group session based on art therapy (AT) for adult cancer patients to reduce anxiety and distress before anticancer treatment.

Methods: A non-randomized pre-post study design was adopted. Sixty-two patients took part in one of twenty-seven “one-off” sessions held over a four-month period. Sixty-six patients, who simply received routine medical treatment, served as the control group (CG).

Results: The intervention was appropriate to patients’ needs and feasible in the context of their routine medical care. In contrast to the CG, the intervention group(IG) participants demonstrated a decrease in symptoms of anxiety, drowsiness and tiredness.

Conclusions: The intervention proved suitable to the medical routine of patients’ care. The clinical implications of the AT protocol and future research aimed at testing it vs. a different type of psychosocial intervention in a randomized controlled study are discussed.

摘要

背景：本研究的目的是调查基于艺术疗法 (AT) 的单一小组会议对成人癌症患者在抗癌治疗前减少焦虑和痛苦的可行性和有效性。

方法：采用非随机的事前研究设计。62 名患者参加了为期四个月的 27 次“一次性”会议之一。66 名仅接受常规药物治疗的患者作为对照组（CG）。

结果：干预适合患者的需求，并且在他们的常规医疗护理中是可行的。与 CG 相比，干预组 (IG) 的参与者表现出焦虑、困倦和疲倦的症状有所减轻。

结论：干预证明适合患者护理的医疗常规。讨论了 AT 协议的临床意义以及旨在测试它与随机对照研究中不同类型的社会心理干预的未来研究。