Effects of Expressive Arts Intervention on the psychosocial well-being and functioning of stroke survivors

Abstract

Introduction: Stroke is a debilitating cerebrovascular illness with substantial impairments that influence the stroke survivors’ functioning in daily lives. Traditional rehabilitation programs focus on restoration of functional capabilities and often overlook the needs in psychosocial and spiritual domains. Expressive arts intervention integrates multiple art modalities for stroke survivors to freely express and transform their complex emotions. The present study examined the effectiveness of expressive arts intervention on stroke survivors. Methods: This ongoing project adopted a randomized controlled study design. So far, 62 stroke survivors have been recruited and randomized into the intervention (N = 38) and control (N = 24) groups. The intervention included 8 weekly sessions of expressive arts intervention. The sample mean age was 54.7 (SD = 8.7) and nearly two-third of them were males. The participants completed validated outcomes measures on social support, hope, stroke-related quality of life, anxiety, depression, spiritual well-being, and self-esteem before and after the intervention. The intervention effects were analyzed using repeated measures analysis of covariance. Effect size was gauged using partial eta-squared (η 2) with cutoff of 0.01, 0.06 and 0.14 indicating small, medium, and large magnitudes, respectively. Results: The intervention showed a small effect on social support (η 2 = 0.049, p = 0.11), and a moderate effect on self-esteem (η 2 = 0.082, p < 0.05), physical quality of life (η 2 = 0.121, p = 0.01), and psychological quality of life (η 2 = 0.137, p < 0.01). Participants in the intervention group displayed increases in social support, self-esteem, physical and psychological quality of life across assessment time-points relative to the control group. No intervention effects were found on hope, spirituality, anxiety, and depression (η 2 < 0.01, p = 0.52 – 0.98). Conclusions: The results of this ongoing study suggest potential effectiveness of expressive arts intervention in achieving a holistic recovery of stroke survivors by improving their psychosocial well-being and quality of life.