If you suffer from a mental disorder maybe you’d feel more at ease at home — home on the range. At least that’s what a new study out of the Norwegian University of Life Sciences supports.

To assess the benefits of Green care, the researchers asked ninety patients (59 women and 31 men) with schizophrenia, affective disorders, anxiety, and personality disorders to complete self-assessment questionnaires on quality of life, coping ability and self-efficacy, before a 12-week period spending three hours, twice a week working with the farm animals.

The research results showed that the patient’s experience with the farm animals provided positive results on the patient’s ability to cope with psychiatric symptoms and thus improving their quality of life. In addition, after six months self-efficacy was shown to be better in the treatment group than in the control group.

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    Last reviewed: By John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on 14 Apr 2008
    Published on PsychCentral.com. All rights reserved.