Effects of Expressive Art Therapy Applied to Earthquake Victims Who Have Experienced Loss

A randomized controlled intervention design with pre-test-post-follow-up measurements was used, which is one of the quantitative research methods. In line with the power analysis, a total of 42 participants, 21 in each group, constituted the research sample. The distribution of participants to the intervention and control groups was made with stratified block randomization. The inclusion criteria of the study included being 18 years of age or older, knowing Turkish, and having experienced material and moral loss due to the earthquake; while the exclusion criteria were mental illness or receiving active psychosocial support. The Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI) and the Post-Traumatic Growth Scale (PTS) were used as data collection tools. The intervention process includes a six-session expressive arts therapy program. The scales will be administered online at pre-test, post-test and two-month follow-up. Data will be evaluated with repeated measures and two-way variance analyses. It is expected that this study will contribute to post-traumatic recovery processes and art-based psychosocial interventions.