Positive Effects on Emotional Stress and Sleep Quality of Forest Healing Program for Exhausted Medical Workers during the COVID-19 Outbreak

Yunsoo Kim, Yoonhee Choi and Hyeyun Kim
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Yunsoo Kim: Department of Nursing, College of Medicine, Catholic Kwandong University, Gangneung 25601, Korea
Yoonhee Choi: The Convergence Institute of Healthcare and Medical Science, College of Medicine, Catholic Kwandong University, Incheon 22711, Korea
Hyeyun Kim: The Convergence Institute of Healthcare and Medical Science, College of Medicine, Catholic Kwandong University, Incheon 22711, Korea

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 5, 1-10

Abstract: This study targeted medical workers, who are currently being subjected to an excessive workload and emotional stress during the COVID-19 outbreak. Various treatment programs, such as a relaxation program to relieve stress, a walk in the forest, and woodworking were provided to the participants as forest healing therapies. We enrolled 13 medical workers (11 females, 2 males). Before and after forest healing therapy, stress and sleep-related questionnaires and levels of salivary cortisol, dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate (DHEA-S), and melatonin were measured and compared. The improvement of the perceived stress scale and the decrease of DHEA-S, a stress index, showed statistically significant results. However, although this study was conducted with a small number of participants and has a limitation in that the therapy occurred over a short period of only 1 night and 2 days, the trend of supporting results remains positive. As such, the authors propose forest healing therapy as one intervention to relieve the job stress for this group of workers

Keywords: COVID-19; sleep; stress; medical workers; forest; healing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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