A statistical approach to comparing the effectiveness of several art therapy tools in estimating the level of a psychological state

Abstract

An approach using a statistical method has been proposed to compare the effectiveness of several art therapy tools in estimating the level of a psychological state, which includes various symptoms and disorders. For each of the art therapy tools, a regression model is developed, whose dependent variable (to be explained) is the level of a psychological state. Various elements in drawings are considered as independent (explaining) variables, some of which are evaluated by the computer systems for art therapy assessments. A set of independent variables "well" explaining the dependent variable is determined by the stepwise regression. The effectiveness of art therapy tools is analyzed and measured in a comparable quantitative term, and thus can be compared with other tools. In this paper, the approach has been applied to three widely used art therapy tools in estimating the level of dementia. The same method can be adopted as a predictor of a psychological state of an individual. (C) 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.