Effect of Clinical Art Therapy on Relieving Occupational Stress and Parenting Stress of Working Mother

Abstract

Economic activity and social participation by women has recently increased; however, working mothers raising young children are under new stress due to the simultaneous combination of job and parenting responsibilities.This stress has resulted in social problems of career break and low fertility.This study investigates the effect of clinical art therapy on occupational stress and parenting stress of working mothers.We analyzed 34 working mothers in full-time employment (over 8 hours a day) who have preschool children (0-6 years old).They were divided into 17 subjects in the experimental group and 17 subjects in the control group.For the experimental group, 10 hours and a half sessions of group art therapy were participated in once a week from April to August in 2014.We perform Dan Occupational Stress Index by Ivancevich and Matteson, Parenting Stress Index/Short Form and salivary cortisol test before and after the group art therapy.For qualitative analysis, Kinetic House-Tree-Person (KHTP) drawing test was used.Using SPSS ver.19.0, paired t-test or Wilcoxon signed rank test compared the pre and post analysis results.The results of this study are as follows.First, scores of 'occupational stress factor' subpart showed significant improvement in the Occupational Stress Index after the clinical art therapy.Second, scores of 'parental distress,' 'parent-child dysfunctional interaction,' and 'difficult child' subpart in Parenting Stress Index also showed a significant improvement.Third, a positive change was observed after the clinical art therapy in the KHTP drawing test.In conclusion, this study suggests that the clinical art therapy can be effective for occupational stress factors and the parenting stress of working mothers.

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