Gardening as an occupational therapy intervention for adult males
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Gardening as an occupational therapy intervention for adult males with a learning disability in a step-down service.
IRAS ID
174427
Contact name
Julie C Taylor
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Cumbria
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 9 months, 20 days
Research summary
Members of the Learning Disability (LD) population are often unable to benefit from conventional attempts to address their offending behaviour or the issues that might underpin it. Feelings of isolation and a lack of connection with the community may hinder engagement further and generate anxiety. Heightened anxiety has been found to impair decision making, meaning that poor choices may be more likely.
Gardening as a group work activity has been found to have two key areas of benefit, the cognitive benefits associated with enhanced mood, reduced anxiety and improved concentration; and social benefits, in the sense of developing social skills and team working.
The aim of this study is to start a voluntary gardening group with residents in a step down service and explore the impact of being part of the gardening group on their perceived wellbeing and social connectedness. Up to 9 residents from 4 residences within the step down service, their key workers and members of the occupational health team associated with the service will meet once a week to plan and tend one of the residences gardens together. The participants' engagement each week is voluntary and their participation with the data collection elements is also voluntary meaning that residents can join in with the gardening and not the research.
A series of scoping meetings with the residents and staff produced a research plan. It was agreed that the first stage of data collection would involve one to one semi-structured interviews; these interviews would be repeated at regular intervals. The data from the semi-structured interviews would be subjected to a thematic analysis and these themes would then be used as the basis for questionnaire development. The questionnaire would be available for use with future residents who may elect to participate in the gardening group for evaluation purposes.
REC name
West Midlands - Black Country Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
15/WM/0172
Date of REC Opinion
12 May 2015
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion