The Effectiveness of Painting Therapy Based on Mindfulness on Emotional Expression in Female Students with Test Anxiety Disorders: A Quasi-Experimental Study

Abstract

Background and Objectives: Painting therapy has been widely used and although it has yielded positive results in clinical practice, it has rarely been researched. Therefore, the aim of this research was to determine the effectiveness of painting therapy based on mindfulness on emotional expression in female students with test anxiety disorder. Materials and Methods:The present study was a quasi-experimental research and the statistical population of the research was all female students in the middle school in the 9th district of Tehran during the academic year 2021-2022, among which 30 girls (15 girls in both the control group and the experimental group) were selected using convenience sampling method and random assignment. The experimental group was trained in painting therapy based on mindfulness (10 sessions of 60 minutes). The control group did not receive any training. In this study, the Test Anxiety Inventory of Abolghasemi et al., the Emotional Expression Questionnaire of King and Emmons, and the Mindfulness-Based Painting Therapy Protocol of Seyedesmaili Ghomi et al. were used to collect data. Descriptive statistics (mean and standard deviation) and multivariate analysis of covariance were applied to analyze the data. Results:The results showed that painting therapy based on mindfulness was effective in modulating emotional expression in the post-test phase (p<0.001). The eta square showed that 0.681 of the variance of positive emotion expression, 0.632 of the variance of intimacy , and 0.695 of the variance of negative emotion expression were caused by the experimental conditions. Conclusion:Based on the findings of the present research, it is recommended to use painting therapy based on mindfulness as a psychological intervention to improve the mental and physical conditions of children with test anxiety.