research
Series of research papers showing how art programmes support health and wellbeing.
WORK AND WELLBEING IN THE NHS
Why Staff Health Matters to Patient Care?
Psychological stress among clinicians poses a direct risk to patient safety through impaired clinical decision-making. Clinician burnout is a real problem across the NHS, and the Royal College of Physicians has proclaimed the importance of promoting health, wellbeing and engagement among clinicians. Read more (link to paper)
— Royal College of Physicians 2015 report
ART INTERVENTIONS WITH PATIENTS
Benefits of Art Programmes
Groups that received art intervention at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital were significantly more likely than were those that did not to have improved clinical outcomes, including better vital signs, diminished cortisol related to stress, and less medication needed to induce sleep. Read more (link to paper)
— Dr Rosalia Staricoff’s arts research project
at the Chelsea and Westminster hospital
WELLBEING AS A PRIORITY
UK Government Commitment to Support Art Organisations
We recommend that Arts Council England supports arts and cultural organisations in making health and wellbeing outcomes integral to their work and identifies health and wellbeing as a priority in its 10-year strategy for 2020–2030. Read more (link to paper)
— The All-Party Parliamentary Group on Arts, Health and Wellbeing Inquiry Report, 2017
GLOBAL ART ENGAGEMENT
Positive Impact of Art on Overall Wellbeing
Statistics around arts engagement offer clean and unequivocally positive evidence: after engaging with the arts, 79% of people in deprived communities in London alone ate more healthily; 77% engaged in more physical activity; 82% enjoyed greater wellbeing.
Researched Benefits of Creativity for Mental Wellbeing
Creativity can: stimulate imagination and reflection; encourage dialogue with the deeper self and enable expression; change perspectives; contribute to the construction of identity; provoke cathartic release; provide a place of safety and freedom from judgement; yield opportunities for guided conversations; increase control over life circumstances; inspire change and growth; engender a sense of belonging; prompt collective working; and promote healing.
Creativity is also seen as a means of empowerment that can help us to face our problems or be distracted from them. Consistent with all this, it is acknowledged that the arts are not anodyne; they allow us to access a range of emotions, including anguish, crisis and pain, which can serve as a preferable alternative to being sedated.
Health & Wellbeing Cross-Party Inquiry Report conclusions
While not wishing to overclaim, we firmly believe that the arts can be enlisted to assist in addressing a number of difficult and pressing policy challenges: strengthening preventative strategies to maintain health for all; helping frail and older people stay healthy and independent; enabling patients to take a more active role in their own health and care; improving recovery from illness; enhancing mental healthcare; improving social care; mitigating social isolation and loneliness, strengthening local services and promoting more cohesive communities; enabling more cost-effective use of resources within the NHS; relieving pressure on GP services; increasing wellbeing among staff in health and social care; encouraging voluntary work; creating a more humane and positive existence for prisoners; enhancing the quality of the built environment; and ensuring more equitable distribution of arts resources and better access to the arts for people who are socially or economically disadvantaged. Read more (link to paper).
— The All-Party Parliamentary Group on Arts, Health and Wellbeing Inquiry Report, 2017