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Effects of forest therapy programs on the psychological and physiological improvement of firefighters

XV World Forestry Congress, 2-6 May 2022

Year of publication 2022

Place of publication Rome, Italy ;

Pages 1p.

Author Park, C. H., Park, B.-J.

Publisher FAO ;

Product type Document

Synopsis (short abstract) Firefighters are constantly exposed to dangerous incidents of fire suppression, emergency relief and first aid activities. They go through posttraumatic stress disorder by terrible incidents and disasters, and long-term stress leads to depression threatening their mental health. This study was carried out with the purpose of inquiring into effects of the experience of forest therapy programs of four nights and five days obtained in a psychological and physiological perspective, oriented to firefighters who are mentally and physically tired by stress from urgent and dangerous field works and long-term shift works. 108 firefighters participate in the programs of stress resilience (four nights and five days), the program customized to firefighters held in National Center for Forest Activities. To inquire into psychological and physiological effects before and after the participation in the programs, this study conducted the posttraumatic stress disorder checklist (PCL-5-K) and the test of mood states (K-POMS-B), as well as measured quality of sleep and heart rate variability. For the analysis, mean comparison was made by using a paired t-test. According to the analysis of psychological index, posttraumatic stress disorder reduced from 11.44 (before participation) to 5.14 (after participation), showing statistically significant changes. As for mood states, the score decreased from 6.50 to 5.53. On the other hand, quality of sleep diminished from 33.85 to 28.73, manifesting statistically significant improvement. HRV likewise improved statistically significantly. This study verified that forest therapy programs contributed to relieving stress of firefighters, increasing their physical and psychological stability, and improving quality of sleep. The research results expect that forest therapy programs can be applied as a base data to strengthen stress resilience of firefighters and prevent their posttraumatic stress disorder. Keywords: Human health and well-being, Research ID: 3484445

Statutory body / Meeting title World Forestry Congress (WFC)

Language English

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