Efficacy of Mindfulness-Based Art Therapy for Reducing Stress in Adolescents

Mindfulness-Based Art Therapy (MBAT) is a combination of mindfulness practices adapted from Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction and Art Therapy. MBAT is a psychosocial intervention that incorporates mindfulness skills training and creating art images designed to enhance awareness and understanding of oneself. The preliminary studies regarding MBAT suggest that it is beneficial in ameliorating psychological symptoms associated with stressors. To provide evidence to its efficacy, A quasi-experimental approach was employed, specifically the one-group pretest-posttest design. Perceived Stress Scale-10 (PSS-10) was used to measure the dependent variable of the study, a standard measurement of stress with superior psychometric properties. The sample comprised of adolescence (N = 43) with moderately and highly perceived stress scores on PSS-10. The participants received one session of MBAT guided by an adopted manual. The data were analyzed using Paired Samples T-Test, accompanied by Cohen’s D to measure effect size. The results showed statistical significant improvements between pretest and posttest (t(32) = 12.6, p < .001) with an extremely large effect size (g = 2.20). The results indicate that MBAT is an effective treatment in reducing the stress of adolescents.