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Effects of art therapy in cancer care: A systematic review and meta‐analysis
Author(s) -
Jiang XiaoHan,
Chen XiJie,
Xie QinQin,
Feng YongShen,
Chen Shi,
Peng JunSheng
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
european journal of cancer care
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.849
H-Index - 67
eISSN - 1365-2354
pISSN - 0961-5423
DOI - 10.1111/ecc.13277
Subject(s) - medicine , meta analysis , cochrane library , quality of life (healthcare) , confidence interval , randomized controlled trial , anxiety , strictly standardized mean difference , medline , physical therapy , cancer therapy , cancer , depression (economics) , psychiatry , nursing , political science , law , economics , macroeconomics
Objective To evaluate the effect of art therapy on cancer patients' quality of life and physical and psychological symptoms. Methods The databases PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, The Cochrane Library, Clinical Trial.gov, the China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), Wanfang and the Chinese Biomedical Literature Database (CBM) were searched from their inception up to 20 August 2019. Trials examining the effects of art therapy on physical and psychological symptoms and quality of life versus a control group were included. The methodological quality of the included randomised controlled trials was assessed using the risk of bias tool of Cochrane Handbook. Meanwhile, the Newcastle‐Ottawa Quality Assessment Scale (NOS) was used to evaluate the methodological quality of the non‐randomised studies. Results Twelve studies involving 587 cancer patients were included. The results revealed that art therapy significantly reduced anxiety symptoms (standard mean difference [SMD] = −0.46, 95% confidence interval [CI] [−0.90, 0.02], p = .04), depression symptoms (SMD = −0.47, 95% CI [−0.72, 0.21], p < .01), and fatigue (SMD = −0.38, 95% CI [−0.68, −0.09], p = .01) in cancer patients. Art therapy also significantly improved the quality of life of cancer patients (SMD = 0.43, 95% CI [0.18, 0.68], p < .01). Conclusions Art therapy had a positive effect on quality of life and symptoms in cancer patients and can be used as a complementary treatment for cancer patients.