Art making and expressive art therapy in adult health and nursing care: A scoping review.
Heli Vaartio-Rajalin, Regina Santamäki-Fischer, Pamela Jokisalo and 1 others
PMID 33575451WHAT IT FOUND
Art activities were reported mostly in older adults across many care settings, but the evidence was too mixed to show they improve patient outcomes.
Key findings
01The review charted 42 papers: 27 on art making and 15 on expressive art therapy.
02Most participants were older adults, usually over 65 in art making papers and over 70 in expressive art therapy papers.
03Many included studies looked at people at one time point, lacked control groups and had small samples, so they cannot establish that art activities caused outcomes.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
The search was conducted by one author and there was no registered review protocol. 31 papers were excluded because a free full-text version was not available. Most art making papers looked at people at one time point, lacked control groups and had small sample sizes. Interventions varied from 20 min to 20 weeks and were not always fully described. Expressive art therapy papers also had small samples, and interventions varied from one session to 20 weeks. The mapped studies were mostly in older adults, and the review found no acute patients.
Declared interests
No specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors was received. The authors declared no known competing financial interests or personal relationships.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read this review as proof that art activities improve patient outcomes. It mapped papers rather than testing one treatment, and many included studies were small, looked at people at one time point, or reported no significant difference.