집단미술치료가 노인요양병원에 장기입원한 노인들의 우울감과 자존감에 미치는 효과

Abstract

This study tries to examine how effective the group art therapy can be on the staying long in hospital for recuperation elderly's depression and self-esteem. The subjects(a total of 5 with two male and three female) are selected from the elderly or people of old age who are hospital for recuperation at M-nursing home in Mu-an province, and who marked over 14 sut-off score on KGDS(Korean Form of Geriatric Depression Scale) and scored less than 28 average on self-esteem test. The art therapy program is composed of all 18 sessions, 1 times a week, during the period of June through October of 2008. Research tools adopted for the study are a measure of depression and measure of self-esteem, both of which are observed on the elderly's behavior and attitude, and both of which are twice conducted before and after the art therapy program. For data analysis the paired t-test is sued, while the recordings over the elderly's behavior and attitude as to depression and self-esteem during the whole program are also analyzed. The results obtained are as follows. First, the group art therapy turns out effective in alleviating depression of the institutionalized elderly. As for the observational measurement of behavior and attitude on their depression level, t-test gives the average-depression score of 10.6 before the program while exhibits the average of 5.2 after the program. It means that a statistical significance exists for the reductive effect of the group art therapy on the institutionalized elderly's depression. Second, the group art therapy proved to be effective in alleviating self-esteem of the institutionalized elderly. As for the observational measurement of behavior and attitude on their self-esteem level, t-test gives the average self-esteem score of 27.6 before the program while exhibits the average of 26.2 after the program. It means that a statistical significance exists for the reductive effect of the group art therapy on the institutionalized elderly's self-esteem. Third, the group art therapy has shown the positive effect on the institutionalized elderly's behavior and attitude. After analyzing their behavior and attitude before and after the program, it can be claimed that the group art therapy not only provides the elderly with an opportunity to interact with each other, so as to gice them a emotional support; but also supplies various media of art-making, through which the elderly gain the sense of achievement and satisfaction that obviously raise their self-esteem but reduce depression.