원예치료가 재소자의 정신건강에 미치는 영향

Effect of Horticultural Therapy on Mental Health of Prison Inmates

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of horticultural therapy on positive and negative mental health status in prison inamtes. Horticultural therapy programs (HTP) were conducted twice a week from May 8 to Jun 1, 2012 on 10 prison inamtes in the G prison located in G city. The self-esteem scale and SCL-90-R were used to measure level of positive mental health and negative health in respectively. In the collected data, means and standard deviations of pre- , mid- and post- test of all variables were calculated, and the effect of this program was determined by the analysis of variance with repeated measure using SPSS. Also, to check the participant’s attitudes and satisfaction toward this program, evaluation of horticultural activities were carried out each session. As a result, HTP in grade of self-esteem was effective slightly to 27.2 after HTP than compared with 23.6 before HTP, but significant difference was not found (p=0.079). According to the symptom checklist-90 revision (SCL-90-R) test, the degree of interpersonal sensitivity, obsessive compulsive, depression, paranoid ideation and hostility took a favorable turn significantly (p<0.01-p<0.05) but somatization, anxiety, phobic anxiety and psychoticism were not significantly improved. Finally, among items of horticultural activity evaluation, participation, interest and assistance, verbal interaction, need-drive adaptation, interpersonal relationship, life-tasks skill and vocational adjustment, cognition and problem solving, and exercise perceptivity were changed for the better. Therefore, it could be concluded that the horticultural therapy programs were effective as an alternative treatment in improving mental health of prison inmates.