Effects of Expressive Art Therapy Applied to Earthquake Victims Who Have Experienced Loss

Merve Kızılırmak Tatu

Status: Active, not recruiting

Conditions: Earthquake Victims

Treatments: Other: Expressive Art Therapy

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT07010861

05.20.2024-E.950905

Details and patient eligibility

About

Earthquakes can negatively affect individuals' mental health by creating serious traumatic effects on individual and societal levels. Traumatic experiences such as losing one's home or workplace, being injured, or losing a loved one cause individuals to develop long-term psychological symptoms. In this context, strengthening psychosocial support programs aimed at coping with psychological and social problems after an earthquake is of great importance. In this study, the effect of expressive art therapy applied to individuals who experienced losses due to the earthquakes centered in Kahramanmaraş on psychological symptoms and post-traumatic growth was examined.

Full description

A randomized controlled intervention design with pre-test-post-follow-up measurements was used, which is one of the quantitative research methods. In line with the power analysis, a total of 42 participants, 21 in each group, constituted the research sample. The distribution of participants to the intervention and control groups was made with stratified block randomization. The inclusion criteria of the study included being 18 years of age or older, knowing Turkish, and having experienced material and moral loss due to the earthquake; while the exclusion criteria were mental illness or receiving active psychosocial support. The Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI) and the Post-Traumatic Growth Scale (PTS) were used as data collection tools. The intervention process includes a six-session expressive arts therapy program. The scales will be administered online at pre-test, post-test and two-month follow-up. Data will be evaluated with repeated measures and two-way variance analyses. It is expected that this study will contribute to post-traumatic recovery processes and art-based psychosocial interventions.

Enrollment: 42 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18+ years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Being 18 years of age or older,
• Being able to understand, speak and write Turkish,
• Having directly experienced the earthquakes centered in Kahramanmaraş, -
• Having experienced material and moral losses due to the earthquakes centered in Kahramanmaraş

Exclusion criteria

• Having a neurological disorder that prevents communication,
• Actively receiving any psychosocial support/counseling

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Single Blind

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42 participants in 2 patient groups

Intervention

Experimental group

Description:

After the pre-test, the intervention program was started for the intervention group. The expressive arts therapy program was applied in six sessions, each session lasting 60-90 minutes. All sessions were conducted online. Each session started with greetings and mood control, then a brief evaluation of the previous week was made. The sessions consisted of three stages: giving instructions by the researcher, participants performing artistic actions with appropriate art elements and techniques, and participants working on sharing their artistic stimulation and associations. A list of materials to be used in the session (pencils, paint, paper, play dough, etc.) was sent to the participants one week before the sessions and they were asked to provide them until the session.

Treatment:

Other: Expressive Art Therapy

Control

No Intervention group

Description:

No intervention was made to the control group. After the follow-up test was applied to the participants in the experimental group, a three-session expressive arts therapy program was applied to the control group.