Development and effects of a non-face-to-face forest therapy program for nurses during the COVID-19 pandemic

In this study, we developed a non-face-to-face forest therapy program using videos and applied it to nurses working in hospitals during the prolonged COVID-19 situation to confirm the effect on their mental health.

This study was a randomized control group pretest-posttest, and 27 clinical nurses in the experimental group and 28 clinical nurses in the control group participated. The program developed forest therapy videos and three city videos each. The experimental group watched the forest therapy video and the control group watched the city video and stress and happiness were measured through pre-test and post-test.

The stress level of clinical nurses who applied the non-face-to-face forest therapy program had a significant reduction effect compared to the control group on day 2 (t = -2.239 P = .026) and day 3 (t = -3.188, P = .003). On the other hand, there was no significant effect in happiness in both groups. In addition, repeated measures analysis of variance statistical analysis confirmed that the stress level of the experimental group significantly decreased over time (F = 10.578, P < .001).

The non-face-to-face forest therapy program is significant in that it had a positive effect on relieving stress by conducting a randomized controlled study targeting clinical nurses working in various hospitals.