With recent interests in healing and psychotherapy, external therapy is important, but people come to be very much interested in depression and anxiety with the emergence of serious social problems of psychological issues such as depression or extreme...
With recent interests in healing and psychotherapy, external therapy is important, but people come to be very much interested in depression and anxiety with the emergence of serious social problems of psychological issues such as depression or extreme choice, suicide. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is an anxiety disorder appearing in most people when they have experienced an incidence which gives severe emotional stress considered a trauma, and it is reported that it usually occurs one month after the incident. This study was carried out since applying color therapy within the month before PTSD occurs after an incident would be helpful for depression, anxiety and the impact of the incidence.
This study aimed to seek for therapeutic and preventive effects by carrying out color therapy to prevent and alleviate PTSD symptoms in burn patients who suffered burns which could be a cause for the PTSD symptoms.
The details and methods for the above purpose are as follows: First, this study investigated the concept of burns, PTSD, art therapy and color therapy through theoretical backgrounds and applied color therapy program for anxiety, depression, impact scale of an incident, self-esteem and change in color in burn patients.
Subjects were patients with second-degree or higher burns who could participate in color therapy selected among the hospitalized patients who needed more than 4 week treatment at a hospital specialized in burns in D. City, and they were adults over 18, divided into 7 persons in Experimental Group and 7 in Control Group.
As programs for the prevention of PTSD symptoms in pre-test and post-test, Self-Portrait Drawing (SPD) Test, Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI), Center for Epidemiological Studies-Depression Scale (CES-D) and Impact of Event Scale-Revised Korean Version (IES-R-K) were carried out and as a color inspection program in pre- and post-testing, first, famous paintings were reconstructed, and then Korea Standard Color Analysis (KSCA) program was applied.
During the 5-week period, the programs were carried out three times a week, and with a total of 12 sessions, they were constructed in the order of pre-testing, color analysis through the famous paintings, art therapy, color therapy, works, expressions and post-testing.
All statistical analysis was conducted by using SPSS (Ver. 18) statistical package in the analysis of the data collected, and Wilcoxon Matched Pairs Singed Ranks Test as the non-parametric statistics were used. About the variation of average score, the significant difference of the variation trend between two groups was examined by using Mann-Whiney U-Wilcoxon Rank Sum Test.
A test on homogeneity between the experimental group and the control group and a two-way test of the assessment tools prior to and post the program were applied using the Mann-Whiney U-Wilcoxon Rank Sum Test,
As a result of the analysis for the prevention of PTSD symptoms, the experimental group showed a lower result value in the post-test than in the pre-test also in Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI), Center for Epidemiological Studies-Depression Scale (CES-D) and Impact of Event Scale-Revised Korean Version (IES-R-K). It means that depression, anxiety, impact of event scale decreased, and in a comparison between the experimental group and the control group, it was found that the result of the pre-test and that of the post-test might be similar in the control group and the experimental group or that the degrees of depression, anxiety and impact of event scale might gradually increase from the pre-test as time passed.
Also in SPD, a tool for art therapy assessment, the experimental group showed a statistically significant difference and the self-esteem of those in the group increased. In addition, in a comparative analysis of the burn patients’ selection of colors before and after the program, it was found that color therapy affected PTSD symptoms.
The findings of this study could prove to some degree that color therapy would be effective for preventing and alleviating burn patients’ PTSD symptoms. Currently, color therapy is hardly carried out on burn patients, and it is insufficient that this study was carried out on the patients who voluntarily intended to participate in the study, but in the future, the obligatory application of it to the patients to stabilize their psychology will bring about more effective therapeutic results.