AI Insight
This pilot study examined short-term psychological responses in 25 community adults who participated in two sequential plant-based activity sessions one week apart. Both sessions produced statistically significant reductions in distress and state anxiety scores, with DASS-21 decreasing by 8.57 points in Session 1 and 5.53 points in Session 2, and STAI-S decreasing by approximately 7 points in both sessions. The study also found improvements in horticultural wellbeing and some heart rate variability measures, though EEG findings did not survive correction for multiple comparisons.
Why it matters
The findings suggest that brief, hands-on plant-based activities such as horticultural and balm crafting may offer accessible interventions for reducing stress and anxiety in community settings. These preliminary results provide effect size estimates that can inform the design of larger randomized controlled trials to establish causal relationships and compare different activity formats.
Understand the Science
BackgroundStructured plant-based activities combine natural materials, purposeful manual work, sensory engagement, and social interaction, but direct comparisons of practical formats in community adults remain limited. We characterized short-term responses during two sequential sessions and compared within-session changes.MethodsTwenty-five adults participated in a single-group, fixed-order pilot study. Session 1 involved horticultural crafting; 1 week later, Session 2 involved balm crafting followed by horticultural crafting. Twenty-three attended both sessions. DASS-21 and STAI-S were principal outcomes; horticultural wellbeing, HRV, and forehead single-channel EEG were exploratory. Within-session changes and complete-case between-session differences were estimated with 95% CIs. Post hoc TOST examined exploratory equivalence bounds.ResultsBoth sessions were followed by favorable short-term psychological changes. DASS-21 scores decreased by 8.57 points in Session 1 [95% CI (5.41, 11.72), n = 23] and 5.53 in Session 2 [(2.65, 8.41), n = 17]. STAI-S scores decreased by 7.30 points in Session 1 [(5.23, 9.37), n = 25] and 6.86 in Session 2 [(4.07, 9.66), n = 22]; all four Holm-adjusted p values were <0.001. Complete-case comparisons showed no statistically detectable between-session difference in DASS-21 improvement [3.12 points, 95% CI (−1.51, 7.75)] or STAI-S improvement [0.34 points, (−3.15, 3.83)]. STAI-S changes met the exploratory TOST criterion only at the broad ±0.50 standardized bound. Horticultural wellbeing improved in both sessions; SDNN and RMSSD increased, whereas EEG findings did not remain significant after multiplicity correction.ConclusionBoth sessions were associated with favorable short-term psychological changes, particularly reduced distress and state anxiety. These findings support the feasibility and potential value of brief, hands-on plant-based activities in community settings and provide estimates for larger randomized, counterbalanced trials. Given the fixed order and absence of a control group, the findings are preliminary rather than definitive causal or modality-specific evidence.