Relationship between Participants Satisfaction in Agro-Healing Activities in a Healing Farm and the Level of Stress and Loyalty

Background and objective: This study was conducted to find out the effects of healing farm resources and participant satisfaction on the level of stress and loyalty. Methods: The experiment was conducted on 18 subjects who participated in agro-healing activities (aged 49.5 years on average) and the concentration of cortisol, the level of stress and satisfaction with the services and program of a healing farm. The healing-agriculture activities were performed once a week, a total of 7 sessions, for 90 minutes and their saliva was collected before and after the activities. Results: The concentration of cortisol, a stress hormone, was statistically significantly reduced after the healing-agriculture activities in 5 out of 7 sessions. The total cortisol concentration showed statistically significant differences. The 6th session was comprised of different activities, compared to others, such as understanding weeds, managing a garden and making a pizza with fermentation enzymes, and the level of cortisol in the 6th session was the lowest after participating in the agro-healing activities, which indicated that the activities have the positive effect of lowering the level of stress. The level of stress was lowered from 18.39 to 16.78, which was consistent with the results of the concentration of cortisol. The level of satisfaction in the last session was below 50%, which indicated that the owner of the farmmight be a little inexperienced in education and marketing on information and safety. The variables of participants including stress and satisfaction with services showed a strong influence on their loyalty. Conclusion: Satisfaction with services and loyalty to the healing farm showed a very high correlation, which was statistically significant. It also showed that participants stress level and satisfaction with the services and program of the healing farm have a strong influence on their loyalty.