Ecotherapy and the benefits for clients with mental illness version 1
Research type
Research Study
Full title
How can ecotherapy be best implemented to bring about benefits for clients with mental illness in the community?
IRAS ID
296811
Contact name
sarojeni stewart
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Bangor University
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 11 months, days
Research summary
This study is concerned with how group participation in ecotherapy activities such as nature guided walks can improve the mental, physical, social and spiritual well-being of clients open to Community Mental Health Services. Mental illness is predicted to be the worst disease burden with 1 in 4 people in the UK presenting to their GP’s thus increasing vulnerability and suffering in the general population and communities with antidepressants being overprescribed for psychosocial needs.
Therefore, there is a need to think ‘out of the box’ and to increase the opportunities available in the community to provide the intervention options for clients experiencing mental health concerns through social prescribing like ecotherapy in the form of nature guided walks. Ecotherapy refers to therapeutic activities that occurs in the presence of nature which can impact positively on health, mental health and wellbeing in general. Social prescribing for the researcher refers to the holistic universal personalized care that involves clients getting support from community based activities that may help to improve their social, physical, mental and spiritual well-being. Whilst scoping the literature ecotherapy in the form of guided walks and conservation activities for the researcher may be seen as a ‘third wave approach’ to care provision that includes mental, social, spiritual and physical wellbeing promotion and recovery through developing a relationship with nature which can act as a therapist. The demand for services is very challenging for the health sector as well as their stakeholder key partners in the community and this has propelled us forward to consider closer working links and integration between Health, Social Care Services, Countryside and third sector organizations to facilitate working relationships to promote prescribing group activities such as ecotherapy through guided walks which may reduce the carbon footprint of medical clinical prescribing.
REC name
East of England - Cambridge South Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
21/EE/0249
Date of REC Opinion
2 Dec 2021
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion