Abstract:
Resilience is considered as a significant predominant factor in transformative process
from substance abuse to drug free in youths. The purpose of this quasi-experimental study was to
examine the effect of group art therapy on resilience among youths with substance abuse.
The sample included twenty-four youths with substance abuse who met the inclusion criteria.
They were selected by simple random sampling and were assigned into the experimental group
(n= 12) and the control group (n= 12). The experimental group received usual substance abuse
therapy from the hospital and group art therapy for 8 sessions, two sessions per week and each
session took about 60-90 minutes. The control group received only usual substance abuse therapy
from the hospital. The Resilience Inventory was employed to evaluate the effectiveness of the
program 3 times; at pre-intervention, post-intervention and 1 month follow-up. Descriptive
statistics, t-test, two-way repeated measure ANOVA and pairwise comparison test by
Bonferronis method were employed to analyze the data.
The finding showed that there were significantly differences in increasing mean score
of resilience between the experimental group and control group before and after intervention
(p< .05). In the experimental group, the mean scores of resilience at pre-intervention,
post-intervention and 1 month follow-up were significantly different (p< .05).
The study results revealed that group art therapy program could promote resilience in
youths with substance abuse. Nurses and other health professions could apply this program to
promote resilience for youths with substance abuse and may apply the program for other groups
of patients.