The Effects of Forest Therapy on Immune Function

Youngran Chae, Sunhee Lee, Youngmi Jo, Soyean Kang, Suyoun Park and Hyoyoung Kang
Additional contact information
Youngran Chae: College of Nursing, Kangwon National University, Chuncheon 24341, Korea
Sunhee Lee: Department of Nursing, Yeoju Institute of Technology, Yeoju-si 12653, Korea
Youngmi Jo: Department of Nursing, Kangwon National University Hospital, Chuncheon 24289, Korea
Soyean Kang: Department of Nursing, Daewon University College, Jecheon 27135, Korea
Suyoun Park: Department of Nursing, Kangwon National University, Chuncheon 24341, Korea
Hyoyoung Kang: Department of Nursing, Songho College, Heongseong 25242, Korea

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 16, 1-17

Abstract: We conducted a systematic review of the effects of a forest therapy program on adults’ immune function. We used PICO-SD (participants, interventions, comparisons, outcomes, study design) to identify key items. The participants were adults over the age of 18 and the intervention was forest therapy. Our comparisons included studies that comparatively analyzed urban groups or groups that did not participate in forest therapy intervention. Cases without control groups were also included. Immunological outcome measures were included in measuring intervention outcomes. All experimental studies, such as randomized controlled trials (RCTs), non-equivalent control group designs (non-RCTs), and one-group pretest-posttest design were included in the study design. A total of 13 studies were included for comparison. Forest therapy programs were divided into lodging-type and session-type programs. The representative measures for evaluating the effects of immune function were the number of NK cells, the cytotoxic activity of NK cells, and cytotoxic effector molecules. Most studies reported improvement in these measures when comparing values after intervention with values before the forest therapy intervention. Therefore, forest therapy has been found to be effective in improving immune function. More RCT studies on the effects of forest therapy on immune function are necessary.

Keywords: forest therapy; adults; immune function (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/16/8440/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/16/8440/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:16:p:8440-:d:611695

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().