A Feasibility Study on Zentangle and Pastel Nagomi Art for Mental Health Patients

Recovery from mental illness has shifted from the clinical perspectives focusing on reducing symptoms to the personal recovery perspectives focusing on the improvement of well-being. A few studies have investigated that art-based workshops promoted positive effects on mental well-being among mental illness patients such as depression women and psychosis patients. Moreover, various studies have found that art-based workshops can reduce anxiety, stress and enhance positive emotion. Improving mental well-being plays an important role for people in the progress of recovery from mental illness. The Zentangle method and Pastel Nagomi Art promote relaxation by emphasizing no comparisons, critiques, or judgments of the finished piece with others, and appreciating the opportunity to make choices. However, there were limited studies examining the effectiveness of the artwork on people living in the community in the progress of recovery from mental illness. To fill the research gap, the purpose of this study is to conduct a feasibility study to test the preliminary effects of Pastel Nagomi Art and Zentangle Art on mental health well-being among persons in recovery from mental illnesses.

The target participants are the service users of the community psychiatric service (CPS) in Hong Kong, and had previously been clinically diagnosed with depression, anxiety or bipolar disorder before being referred to CPS. The individuals who cannot speak and understand Chinese, are currently diagnosed with psychotic symptoms, and currently taking or took Zentangle or Pastel Nagomi before will be excluded.

A 3-arm randomized control trial will be used: one arm with Zentangle workshops, the other arm with Pastel Nagomi Art, while the control group will receive usual care. Data collection from each participant will be conducted at 3-time points, at baseline (T0) before the 4-week weekly Pastel Nagomi Art or Zentangle Art program, right after the program (T1), and one month after the program (T2).

The Statistical Software Package for Social sciences will be used for quantitative data analysis. All participants from each artwork group will be invited to partake 45-60 minutes focus group interview to share their experience with this intervention. The content of the focus group interview will be audio recorded. The audio recordings were transcribed verbatim in Chinese and imported into NVivo Pro 12 for data management. The qualitative data will be analyzed by using thematic content analysis.

Inclusion criteria

• Service users of the Community Psychiatric Services of Kowloon West Cluster
• had previously been clinically diagnosed with depression, anxiety or bipolar disorder

Exclusion criteria

• The individuals who cannot speak and understand Chinese,
• currently diagnosed with psychotic symptoms, and
• currently taking or took Zentangle or pastel Nagomi art before