Effectiveness of group art therapy on interpersonal communication skills of women with chronic mental disorders hospitalized in rehabilitation center for chronic psychiatric patients

During the last three decades, care and rehabilitation of chronic mental patients have received increasing attention in mental health system. This study has been done to determine the effect of group art therapy on interpersonal communication skills of patients with chronic mental disorders. The current research is a quasi-experimental study that has been performed in the maintenance and rehabilitation of chronic mental patients Atef center in Mashhad on September 2010. The research community included female patients with chronic mental disorders in the center. Among them, 28 women who have inclusion criteria for research were selected by convenient sampling method and were assigned to two control and experiment groups by random assignment. Then the rate of their interpersonal communication skills was assessed by Bar-On emotional intelligence questionnaire. Then eight sessions of group art therapy were conducted for the experimental group. The control group received routine care plan. After intervention, the rates of interpersonal communication skills of patients were measured again and collected data were analyzed by covariance analysis. Findings showed that there was a significant difference in scores of interpersonal communication test (P=0.000). Also after adjusting pretest scores, difference between two groups was remained significant (P=0.000). The implementation of group art therapy increased the rate of interpersonal communication skills in hospitalized women with chronic mental disorders.