Community Gardening: Stress, Well-Being, and Resilience Potentials.

Area of Science:

• Environmental Psychology
• Urban Mental Health
• Community Interventions

Background:

• Urbanization presents significant financial and health burdens due to stress.
• Existing research highlights community gardening's mental health benefits, but lacks a clear link to resilience.
• A need exists for understanding how community gardening impacts resilience and overall mental well-being in urban settings.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the relationship between community gardening and mental health outcomes.
• To examine the impact of community gardening on subjective well-being, stress, and resilience.
• To explore the connection between community gardening and specific resilience factors like self-esteem, optimism, and openness.

Main Methods:

• A survey was administered to 111 residents in Singapore, comparing community gardeners, individual/home gardeners, and non-gardeners.
• Multivariate Analysis of Covariance (MANCOVA) was used to analyze differences in mental health outcomes.
• Pearson's correlation analyses were employed to examine relationships between variables, controlling for age and nature connection.

Main Results:

• Community gardeners reported significantly higher subjective well-being than individual/home gardeners and non-gardeners, even after controlling for covariates.
• Community gardeners demonstrated higher levels of resilience and optimism compared to the non-gardening control group.
• These findings suggest community gardening may offer superior mental health benefits over individual gardening or other outdoor activities.

Conclusions:

• Community gardening shows potential as a strategy for mental health promotion in urban environments.
• The study provides novel evidence linking community gardening to enhanced subjective well-being and resilience.
• Findings have implications for clinical psychology, mental health policy, and urban planning initiatives.