Effect of Short-term Forest Bathing in Urban Parks on Perceived Anxiety of Young-adults: A Pilot Study in Guiyang, Southwest China

Abstract

Forest can be taken as a natural therapy to alleviate perceived anxiety of visitors. Given the geographical difference between urban and rural forest environments, little is known about the urban forest therapy effect of anxiety alleviation with reference to the rural forest. In this study, forty-three university students (aged from 19 to 23) were recruited as participants to visit the forest parks at urban and rural areas of Guiyang City on 21 and 23 December 2016. The forest experience was separated by four sceneries. Participants were asked to complete questionnaires by self-evaluating specific anxiety change from 12 questions with scores from 1 to 10 at both entrance and exit of the parks. The Wilcoxon signed-rank test and paired t-test were used to compare the change of anti-anxiety scores during forest bathing and between urban and rural forests, respectively. Results revealed that forest bathing in the urban park can alleviate the anxiety from financial state (P = 0.0028), exam-pass pressure (P = 0.0040) and love-affair relationship (P = 0.0286). Although rural forest bathing can also alleviate the anxiety from financial state (P = 0.0222), meanwhile, it maintained the anxiety about campus life (P < 0.0001). Forest tree richness tended to be higher in the rural forest park than in the urban one, which in contrast decreased the anxiety alleviation from inter-communication in the rural forest park (P = 0.0487). Principle component analysis indicated that participants tended to perceive more decline of anxiety from social contact in the urban forest. In conclusion, university students were recommended to pay a short visit to the urban forest with partners if they felt anxious about personal affairs and felt necessary to talk with others. For general people's visiting, urban forest trees can be controlled in diversity to some extent to look orderly and alleviate perceived anxiety.

Facial Expressions of Visitors in Forests along the Urbanization Gradient: What Can We Learn from Selfies on Social Networking Services?

“…Ranked data were tested by Friedman's chi-square test to detect the probability of different row-means in data tables stratified by variations from cities, urban-forest park locations, and their interactions. When a significant effect was found, data were arranged and compared by the Wilcoxon rank-sum test [46,47]. Bonferroni adjustment was employed to test for significance at the 0.05 level [48].…”

“…In addition, a restorative forest effect was characterized by groups of trees by Jiang et al, who found that men can perceive discomfort in response to heavy tree density while women do not realize this stress [51]. Thus, tree density in urban forest parks of China might be greater than a male prefers [8,46,47]. However, the current understanding about the restorative response and gender difference to the forest experience is still limited.…”

The Effects of a Short Forest Recreation Program on Physiological and Psychological Relaxation in Young Polish Adults

“…In this study, a pre-test-post-test design was applied to one group. This design is frequently used to assess the effectuality of forest recreation programs [6,[8][9][10]. The current study did not have a control group, however, which might violate its internal validity.…”

“…Physiological indices were also affected, as this program resulted in lowered diastolic blood pressure and pulse rate in the participants [7]. A two-day forest therapy program conducted in urban parks in China had an antianxiety effect [8], and another two-day forest therapy program conducted in a recreational forest in Taiwan had a significant positive influence on the mood states of women involved in the study, causing a decrease in both anxiety levels and systolic blood pressure [9]. A five-day forest therapy program conducted in Japan also had a positive influence on the mood states of the participants [10].…”

Analyzing Visitors’ Preferences and Evaluation of Satisfaction Based on Different Attributes, with Forest Trails in the Akasawa National Recreational Forest, Central Japan

“…Previous studies have shown that walking in a forest can alleviate stress caused by personal work or activities, and the decompression effect caused by different forest conditions also changes stress levels [12][13][14][15]. In addition, a forest can contribute to recovery from health conditions [16].…”