Outdoor-Based Therapy and Human Health

A special issue of Healthcare (ISSN 2227-9032).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 August 2024 | Viewed by 1248

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
School of Forest Resources, Chungbuk National University, Cheongju-si 361-763, Republic of Korea
Interests: forest therapy; social forestry; forest recreation; forest welfare; forest education; psychological benefits of forest/nature use; forest/nature and public health
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

We are becoming an urban society, with more than 55% of the population living in urban settings. Rapid urbanization and urban drift centralization of the population are significant contributors to mental health and sedentary lifestyle diseases. To combat this, people are seeking access to outdoor environments. Concurrently, researchers/practitioners have developed an interest in establishing outdoor-based therapeutic approaches that share common practices such as place-based learning, forest therapy, embodied experiences, therapeutic adventure, and nature-based stress reduction.

This Special Issue aims to compile the latest progress and research outcomes in the field of outdoor-based therapy. Contributions may focus on one or more of the following areas: 

  • Empirical support for the effects of outdoor use/intervention and human health/welfare;
  • Social and economic impacts of outdoor use and management in human health/welfare;
  • Why and how outdoor environments contribute to human health and welfare, especially in preventing disease, prolonging life, and promoting physical, social, and psychological welfare;
  • Methodological innovation for evaluating human health/welfare effects from outdoors;
  • Measuring economic benefits for using outdoor for human health/welfare.

Prof. Dr. Won-Sop Shin
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Healthcare is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • health and well-being outdoors
  • stress reduction
  • restorative environments
  • forest therapy
  • public health

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

15 pages, 4176 KiB  
Article
Effects of Mobile-Based Forest-Therapy Programs Using Urban Forests for Symptoms of Depressed Patients
by Poung-Sik Yeon, In-Ok Kim, Si-Nae Kang, Nee-Eun Lee, Ga-Yeon Kim, Ha-Rim Shim, Chung-Yeub Chung, Jung-Sok Lee, Jin-Young Jeon and Won-Sop Shin
Healthcare 2023, 11(23), 3039; https://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare11233039 - 25 Nov 2023
Viewed by 805
Abstract
This study investigated the effect of mobile-based forest therapy programs on relieving depression to advance non-pharmaceutical treatments for patients with depression. The effects of depression, sleep quality, and physical symptoms were analyzed as measurement indicators to determine the effectiveness of symptom relief in [...] Read more.
This study investigated the effect of mobile-based forest therapy programs on relieving depression to advance non-pharmaceutical treatments for patients with depression. The effects of depression, sleep quality, and physical symptoms were analyzed as measurement indicators to determine the effectiveness of symptom relief in patients with depression. This study used a randomized controlled experiment design. Participants were randomly assigned, and a total of 44 people participated, including 23 in the experimental group and 21 in the control group. The experimental group participated in a mobile-based forest therapy program (participating once a week) for six sessions. As a result of this study, depression patients who participated in the mobile-based forest therapy program conducted in urban forests showed a significant reduction in MADRS (from 21.48 ± 4.05 to 7.13 ± 7.00). In addition, PSQI (from 19.78 ± 7.69 to 14.48 ± 8.11) and PHQ-15 (from 9.87 ± 5.08 to 7.57 ± 5.03) were also found to significantly improve symptoms. This suggests that forest-therapy programs using mobile applications can be applied as non-pharmaceutical interventions to relieve symptoms in patients with depression. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Outdoor-Based Therapy and Human Health)
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