Using Drawing Tests to Explore the Multidimensional Psychological Aspects of Children with Cancer

Abstract

In seeking to understand how life-threatening illness affects children psychologically, projective testing may be beneficial, particularly when attempting to identify psychological problems in younger adolescents. The advantages of projective testing are that it does not depend on patients' verbal ability and is not invasive. Three cancer inpatients from Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine, aged between 10 and 16 years old, participated in the study. Projective testing was used to measure the depth of participants' distress and included a tree-drawing test, a person-drawing test and a free drawing test. Results from the tree-and person-drawing tests indicated energy loss, anxiety and a sense of emptiness. However, results from the free drawing test suggested that the children had hope and a desire to recover from their illness. The combination of drawing tests in this study may increase the understanding of the internal psychological difficulties faced by children hospitalized with cancer.

The effectiveness of mandala drawing in reducing psychological symptoms, anxiety and depression in hospitalised adolescents with cancer: A randomised controlled trial

“…Various studies have determined that adolescents receiving cancer treatment experience depression and high levels of anxiety due to factors such as cancer-related discomforts and physical symptoms (Allen et al, 1997;Hatano et al, 2014). In our study, the anxiety and depression scores of adolescents in the intervention group decreased significantly after the two sessions of mandala drawing compared to the control group.…”

“…Recently, nurses working in paediatric oncology centres have offered a number of psychosocial care services. However, paediatric oncology patients may experience psychological symptoms and inadequate coping (Hatano et al, 2014;Wiener et al, 2015). As it is understood from the literature, nurses need to transfer different psychosocial care approaches such as art therapy to their routine clinical practices.…”

Child Drawing: A Projective Tool for Dental Anxiety Assessment

“…This strategy is designed to allow the child to respond openly to an ambiguous stimulus to reveal internal conflicts and subconscious distress. 17 Drawing can be used in any setting and for many purposes, such as diagnosis, assessment, research, or the measurement of progress in therapy. It is used as an art therapy and represents a phenomenological approach.…”

The art of perception: Patients drawing their vestibular schwannoma

“…Drawings made by patients have been successfully applied in a number of medical conditions and report that patients find it easier to illustrate their feelings more accurately by a drawing than they can express them with words . Previous studies on patients’ drawings in which drawing characteristics were scored were identified by a PubMed search (March 20, 2015) and resulted in 18 studies (Table ) . These studies demonstrate that drawings made by patients reveal their perceptions on their illness.…”