Art making and expressive art therapy in adult health and nursing care: A scoping review

Abstract

Objectives While receptive art engagement is known to promote health and wellbeing, active art engagement has not been fully explored in health and nursing care. This review is to describe the existing knowledge on art making and expressive art therapy in adult health and nursing care between 2010 and 2020. Methods Relevant studies and grey literature were searched and identified between March 17 and April 10, 2020 from EBSCO, CINAHL, Medline and ERIC databases and a general Internet search. Following data charting and extraction, the data ( n = 42 papers) were summarized and reported in accordance with PRISMA-ScR guidelines. Results In the included papers, both art making and expressive art therapy were seen in different health care and nursing contexts: yet not the home care context. The emphasis of art activities were group activities for chronically or terminally ill residents, adults aged 65 years or older. A focus on personal narrative was often seen, which may explain why art activities appear to be linked to acknowledging and building new strengths and skills, making meaning of experiences, personal growth, symptom alleviation, and communication; all used to foster collaboration between patients, patients’ near-ones and health care professionals. Conclusions Art activities appear to be suitable for every context and can promote personcenteredness and the measurement of nursing outcomes, and they should be considered an essential part of health and nursing care, nursing education and care for health care personnel.

Women Supporting Women: The Use of Art With Anxious/Depressed, Urban, Impoverished, Ethnically Diverse Women

“…In terms of the creative impact of the project, the participants found themselves empowered (Bone, 2018;Dunphy et al, 2019;Poulos et al, 2019;Scope et al, 2017) and took pride in their work (Poulos et al, 2019;Scope et al, 2017). While somewhat less apparent, it is possible that the previously documented theme of enhanced self-worth and recognition of one's strengths (Bone, 2018;Dunphy et al, 2019;Scope et al, 2017;Vaartio-Rajalin et al, 2020) overlaps to some extent with the affirmation of identity that was noted in this study. Such replication is critically important to the development of the science of nursing and the ability to base care upon evidence.…”

“…Art therapy has been described as “using painting, clay work, and other creative visual art-making (including creative digital media) as a form of nonverbal expression in conjunction with other modes of communication within a therapeutic relationship in an appropriate therapeutic setting” (Scope et al, 2017, p. 26). The literature suggests an art intervention might be professionally led albeit by a variety of providers with varying qualifications (Chiang et al, 2019; Laranjeira et al, 2019; Poulos et al, 2019; Scope et al, 2017), consumer led (Bone, 2018), or the person responsible for the art-making may not be described (Vaartio-Rajalin et al, 2020). Art interventions have been explored in various populations, including persons living with mental illness (Bone, 2018; Chiang et al, 2019; Dunphy et al, 2019; Jensen & Bonde, 2018; Jensen et al, 2016; Laranjeira et al, 2019; Uttley et al, 2015; Van Lith, 2015), African American women who are homeless (Moxley et al, 2011), chronically and terminally ill older adults (Vaartio-Rajalin et al, 2020), persons with dementia (Camic et al, 2014), adults with chronic pain (Kim et al, 2020), adult cancer patients (Kim et al, 2018; Lawson et al, 2016; Lee et al, 2017; Wood et al, 2013), and current/former mental health service users seeking to support their current role as mental health support workers (Casey & Webb, 2019).…”

“…Multiple benefits of art interventions have been identified. These include increased well-being (Bone, 2018; Camic et al, 2014; Crone et al, 2018; Jensen & Bonde, 2018; Laranjeira et al, 2019; Poulos et al, 2019), enhanced self-worth and recognition of one’s strengths (Bone, 2018; Dunphy et al, 2019; Scope et al, 2017; Vaartio-Rajalin et al, 2020), empowerment (Bone, 2018; Dunphy et al, 2019; Poulos et al, 2019; Scope et al, 2017), increased social connection (Camic et al, 2014; Dunphy et al, 2019; van de Venter & Buller, 2015), coping (Van Lith, 2015; Wood et al, 2013), gaining perspective (Dunphy et al, 2019; Scope et al, 2017), relaxation and distraction (Bone, 2018; Scope et al, 2017), and personal achievement (Poulos et al, 2019; Scope et al, 2017). Several potential harmful outcomes to an art intervention were identified as well including activation of emotions that were not resolved, anxiety, and pain (Scope et al, 2017).…”

“…Relative to gender, in this same period, 40.5% of women and 33.1% of men reported symptoms of anxiety or depression (Centers for Disease Control and While most envision a health-related art intervention as the production of art (Bone, 2018;Casey & Webb, 2019;Van Lith, 2015), the term has also included exposure to arts and cultural activities, such as dance, drama, poetry, photography, film, and music (Chiang et al, 2019;Crone et al, 2018;Dunphy et al, 2019;Jensen et al, 2016;Poulos et al, 2019;van de Venter & Buller, 2015). Given this, art engagement can be either receptiveexposure to music, literature or theater-or active as in art-making (Vaartio-Rajalin et al, 2020). Art therapy has been described as "using painting, clay work, and other creative visual art-making (including creative digital media) as a form of nonverbal expression in conjunction with other modes of communication within a therapeutic relationship in an appropriate therapeutic setting" (Scope et al, 2017, p. 26).…”

An Investigation into Art Therapy Aided Health and Well-Being Research: A 75-Year Bibliometric Analysis

“…In addition, VOSviewer is a free software tool that can be used to create and visualize bibliometric maps of scientific publications, authors, journals, countries, institutions, and keywords [ 58 ]. In the review articles related to AT, the research methods greatly include scope review [ 59 ], integrative review [ 60 , 61 ], meta-analysis [ 62 , 63 ], and quantitative analysis [ 64 ]. Further, there is a lack of research that uses the visualization of keyword co-occurrence analysis to summarize the categories and research hotspots of AT-aided health and well-being.…”