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Comparison Of The Effects Of Individual And Group Horticulture Interventions

Yuka Kotozaki

Abstract Chronic stress adversely affects the body, and stress and negative emotions affect the development and progression of diseases. This study focuses on horticultural therapy (HT) as a method of stress reduction. Although previous studies have reported that HT has many benefits, the effects of HT in relation to differences in the intervention style have not been investigated. The purpose of this study was to clarify whether there is a difference in the effect due to the difference in intervention style in HT. The participants were divided into three groups, a group intervention (GI group; n=15), an individual intervention (II group; n=15), and a control group (C group; n=15). The GI and II groups underwent four weeks of a horticultural intervention, whereas the C group was provided with a gardening kit by an experimenter. The individuals in the C group cared for the plants by themselves for 15 min per day for one month. The GI group showed significant improvement in the WHO Quality of Life 26 (WHO-QOL26) subscore, the Emotional Intelligence Scale (EQS) subscore, the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ) score, and salivary cortisol level, as compared with the II group. These findings suggest that a group HT intervention might be more effective than an individual intervention.