The effects of art therapy on anxiety, depression, and quality of life in adults with cancer: a systematic literature review.

PURPOSE: While there is increasing evidence for the effectiveness of psychosocial support programs for cancer patients, little attention has been paid to creativity or art as a way of addressing their psychological problems and improving quality of life. This review provides an overview of interventional studies that investigate the effects of art therapy interventions on anxiety, depression, and quality of life in adults with cancer. METHODS: We conducted a literature review with a systematic search. The databases PubMed/MEDLINE, PsycINFO, and EMBASE were searched for articles on art therapy among adult (18 years and above) cancer patients, published between September 2009 up to September 2019. Search terms were established for each database specifically. A total of 731 publications was assessed for relevance by title and abstract. The remaining 496 articles were examined using three inclusion criteria: interventions were guided by an artist or art therapist, participants were actively involved in the creative process, and anxiety, depression, and/or quality of life were included as outcome measures. Methodological quality of the included studies was appraised using specific checklists. RESULTS: Seven papers met the inclusion criteria. Data was extracted from three non-randomized intervention studies and four randomized controlled trials. All studies used a quantitative design with validated outcome measures. Four articles described positive effects of art therapy on anxiety, depression, or quality of life in adults with cancer. CONCLUSION: Art therapy could possibly help decrease symptoms of anxiety and depression, and improve quality of life in adult cancer patients. However, because of the heterogeneity of the interventions and limited methodological quality of the studies, further research using stringent methods is needed.

Professional identity at stake: a phenomenological analysis of spiritual counselors' experiences working with a structured model to provide care to palliative cancer patients.

BACKGROUND: Good palliative care requires excellent interprofessional collaboration; however, working in interprofessional teams may be challenging and difficult. AIM: The aim of the study is to understand the lived experience of spiritual counselors working with a new structured method in offering spiritual care to palliative patients in relation to a multidisciplinary health care team. DESIGN: Interpretive phenomenological analysis of in-depth interviews, was done using template analysis to structure the data. We included nine spiritual counselors who are trained in using the new structured method to provide spiritual care for advanced cancer patients. RESULTS: Although the spiritual counselors were experiencing struggles with structure and iPad, they were immediately willing to work with the new structured method as they expected the visibility and professionalization of their profession to improve. In this process, they experienced a need to adapt to a certain role while working with the new method and described how the identities of the profession were challenged. CONCLUSIONS: There is a need to concretize, professionalize, and substantiate the work of spiritual counselors in a health care setting, to enhance visibility for patients and improve interprofessional collaboration with other health care workers. However, introducing new methods to spiritual counselors is not easy, as this may challenge or jeopardize their current professional identities. Therefore, we recommend to engage spiritual counselors early in processes of change to ensure that the core of who they are as professionals remains reflected in their work.