Daniel J. Bowen|James T. Neill|Simon James Crisp
Wilderness adventure therapy effects on the mental health of youth participants
University of Canberra|University of Canberra
adventure therapy offers prevention early intervention treatment modality people behavioural psychological psychosocial issues appeal youthatrisk often less responsive traditional psychotherapeutic interventions study evaluated wilderness adventure therapy wat outcomes based participants preprogram postprogram followup responses selfreport questionnaires sample consisted 36 adolescent outpatients mixed mental health issues completed 10week manualised wat intervention overall shortterm standardised mean effect size small positive statistically significant 026 moderate statistically significant improvements psychological resilience social selfesteem total shortterm effects within agebased adventure therapy metaanalytic benchmark 90 confidence intervals except change suicidality lower comparable benchmark shortterm changes retained threemonth followup except family functioning significant reduction suicidality significant improvement participants clinical ranges preprogram large statistically significant reduction depressive symptomology large large statistically significant improvements behavioural emotional functioning changes retained threemonth followup findings indicate wat effective traditional psychotherapy techniques clinically symptomatic people future research utilising comparison waitlist control group multiple sources data larger sample could help qualify extend findings