Anthroposophic art therapy in chronic disease: a four-year prospective cohort study

Anthroposophic art therapy (painting, clay modeling, music, and speech exercises) is used in 28 countries but has not yet been studied in primary care.

To study clinical outcomes in patients treated with anthroposophic art therapy for chronic diseases.

Prospective cohort study.

Fifty-four medical practices in Germany.

One hundred sixty-one consecutive outpatients (primary care: n = 150), aged 5-71 years, were treated by 52 different art therapists.

Disease and symptom scores (physician and patient assessment, respectively, 0-10) and quality of life (adults: SF-36 Health Survey, children: KINDL Questionnaire for Measuring Health-Related Quality of Life in Children and Adolescents). Outcomes were measured after 3, 6, 12, 18, and 24 months; SF-36 and symptom scores were also measured after 48 months.

Most common indications were mental disorders (60.9% of patients, primarily depression, fatigue, and anxiety) and neurological diseases (6.8%). The median number of therapy sessions was 15; median therapy duration was 161 days. All outcomes except KINDL improved significantly between baseline and all subsequent follow-ups. Improvements from baseline to 12 months were: disease score from (mean +/- standard deviation) 6.69 +/- 1.72 to 2.46 +/- 1.90 (P < .001), symptom score from 5.99 +/- 1.69 to 3.40 +/- 2.08 (P < .001), SF-36 physical component summary measure from 44.12 +/- 10.03 to 48.68 +/- 9.47 (P < .001), and SF-36 mental component summary measure from 35.07 +/- 12.23 to 42.13 +/- 11.51 (P < .001). All these improvements were maintained until last follow-up.

Patients receiving anthroposophic art therapy had long-term reduction of chronic disease symptoms and improvement of quality of life.