Anthroposophic art therapy in chronic disease: a four-year prospective cohort study.
BACKGROUND
Anthroposophic art therapy (painting, clay modeling, music, and speech exercises) is used in 28 countries but has not yet been studied in primary care.


OBJECTIVE
To study clinical outcomes in patients treated with anthroposophic art therapy for chronic diseases.


METHODS
Prospective cohort study.


METHODS
Fifty-four medical practices in Germany.


METHODS
One hundred sixty-one consecutive outpatients (primary care: n = 150), aged 5-71 years, were treated by 52 different art therapists.


METHODS
Disease and symptom scores (physician and patient assessment, respectively, 0-10) and quality of life (adults: SF-36 Health Survey, children: KINDL Questionnaire for Measuring Health-Related Quality of Life in Children and Adolescents). Outcomes were measured after 3, 6, 12, 18, and 24 months; SF-36 and symptom scores were also measured after 48 months.


RESULTS
Most common indications were mental disorders (60.9% of patients, primarily depression, fatigue, and anxiety) and neurological diseases (6.8%). The median number of therapy sessions was 15; median therapy duration was 161 days. All outcomes except KINDL improved significantly between baseline and all subsequent follow-ups. Improvements from baseline to 12 months were: disease score from (mean +/- standard deviation) 6.69 +/- 1.72 to 2.46 +/- 1.90 (P < .001), symptom score from 5.99 +/- 1.69 to 3.40 +/- 2.08 (P < .001), SF-36 physical component summary measure from 44.12 +/- 10.03 to 48.68 +/- 9.47 (P < .001), and SF-36 mental component summary measure from 35.07 +/- 12.23 to 42.13 +/- 11.51 (P < .001). All these improvements were maintained until last follow-up.


CONCLUSIONS
Patients receiving anthroposophic art therapy had long-term reduction of chronic disease symptoms and improvement of quality of life.
Institute for Applied Epistemology and Medical Methodology, Freiburg, Germany. harald.hamre@ifaemm.de
Harald J
HJ
Hamre
Claudia M
CM
Witt
Anja
A
Glockmann
Renatus
R
Ziegler
Stefan N
SN
Willich
Helmut
H
Kiene
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001155:Art Therapy / Q000458:organization & administration / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D002648:Child; D002908:Chronic Disease / Q000628:therapy; D015331:Cohort Studies; D005260:Female; D005858:Germany; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010045:Outpatients / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D017060:Patient Satisfaction / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011446:Prospective Studies; D011788:Quality of Life; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric; D016896:Treatment Outcome