Effects of Forest Plant Healing Therapy on School Stress and Affectivity in College Students

This study was conducted to find out the effect of pre- and post-plant therapy, which is one of six major forest healing methods, on male and female college students’ positive and negative affect and stress in college life. The healing program reflecting on students’ past, present, and future was conducted at Chungbuk National University Woraksan Research Forest in late March for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd year students attending the department of forestry at Chungbuk National University. A questionnaire regarding school stress and affect states was surveyed before and after the healing program which lasted two and half hours. The collected data were used to test and analyze the effect of pre-and post-plant therapy utilizing a paired t-test. The study found that after plant therapy there was not a significant change in average stress scores of the participants (p=.06). However, there was a significant increase in the average score for postivie emotions (p=.000) and decrease for negative emotions (p=.000) Gender differences in afffective responses reported male students showed greater changes in positive and negative affect than did female students. The results show that plant therapy had a positive effect on college students’ emotions. It also suggests plant therapy has potential applications in maintaining the emotional stability of college students. However, as the short-term effects for the short period of time have been verified, further studies are needed.