The Effects of Dance Movement Therapy in the Treatment of Depression: A Multicenter, Randomized Controlled Trial in Finland

Abstract

This multicenter research investigates the effects of dance movement therapy (DMT) on participants diagnosed with depression. In total, 109 persons participated in the study in various locations in Finland. The participants were 39 years old, on average (range = 18-64 years), and most were female (96%). All participants received treatment as usual (TAU). They were randomized into DMT + TAU (n = 52) or TAU only (n = 57). The participants in the DMT + TAU group were offered 20 DMT sessions twice a week for 10 weeks in addition to standard care. The measurement points included pretreatment measurement at the baseline, posttreatment measurement at the end of the intervention, and a follow-up measurement 3 months afterward. The observed effects of the intervention among participants in the DMT+TAU group were a greater reduction in depression and in indicators of physical and psychological distress in comparison to the participants who received TAU-only. At the 3-month follow-up, the corrected between-group effect sizes (ESs) were medium and in favor of the DMT + TAU group (d = 0.60-0.72). These results are in line with the increasing number of research studies showing the benefits of DMT intervention among participants with depression, and these results indicate that DMT may improve the effectiveness of standard care.

The Development of Mindful-Based Dance Movement Therapy Intervention for Chronic Pain: A Pilot Study With Chronic Headache Patients

“…These results are consistent with previous research studies with a similar patient group with medically unexplained symptoms, including medically unexplained pain, where 65% of the participants involved in a (TBMA) group demonstrated reliable improvement on depression or anxiety measures (Payne and Brooks, 2017;. These results can also support the results from a large-scale clinical trial on DMT and depression (Hyvönen et al, 2020) and meta-analyses on DMT for depression (Meekums et al, 2015;Karkou et al, 2019). In addition, potentially, they add to the results from generic metaanalyses on DMT (Koch et al, 2019).…”

Comparative Effectiveness of Multiple Exercise Interventions in the Treatment of Mental Health Disorders: A Systematic Review and Network Meta-Analysis

“…The age of participants ranged between 19 and 76 years old. Fifty-six studies (1510 participants) examined the effects of AE [ 34 , 36 – 38 , 57 – 59 , 61 , 64 , 66 , 67 , 69 – 72 , 74 – 78 , 85 , 86 , 88 – 96 , 98 , 101 , 102 , 106 , 107 , 109 , 111 , 112 , 114 , 118 , 121 , 122 , 124 , 136 – 138 , 141 , 147 , 150 , 155 – 158 , 160 , 164 ], while 9 studies (161 participants) evaluated RE [ 57 , 60 , 63 , 70 , 122 , 125 , 134 , 149 , 166 ], 49 studies (1530 participants) evaluated MBE [ 35 , 43 , 62 , 73 , 79 – 84 , 87 , 93 , 97 , 99 , 100 , 103 – 105 , 110 , 115 – 117 , 119 , 120 , ...…”

Application of Educational Psychology-Based Dance Therapy in College Students’ Life Education

“…The data results illustrate the superiority and influence of DT in CSLE and deepen the understanding and research on their relationship. This is conducive to supporting relevant education programs of the combination of DT and CSLE ( Hyvönen et al, 2020 ).…”