Consistently improved wellbeing through contemporary dance in Early Intervention
Poster B134, Friday, October 21, 11:30 am - 1:00 pm, Le Baron
Matthew Taylor1, The Alchemy Project1; 1King's College London
Full recovery after episodes of psychosis is a common goal of early intervention services. Subjective measures of mental wellbeing provide an important insight into how well this is acheived. It is generally challenging to demonstrate improved wellbeing after interventions for people with a history of psychosis. Following a successful pilot, The Alchemy Project took place in South London in 2015 offering contemporary dance training and performance to early intervention service users. 33 people from the caseloads of Early Intervention teams in South London took part in the project in two separate cohorts. Participants attended a four-week full-time dance-led intervention leading to a three performances to invited audiences. Wellbeing was assessed by the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale. Recruitment and retention in the project went well, with demand for further training to be offered in the future. Wellbeing scores improved over the course of the project. Mean scores at the end of the project were 55.0 ± 7.0 and 55.0 ± 7.6 in the two cohorts. This dance-based intervention appears an effective means of increasing wellbeing in EI populations, having achieved similar results in three separate groups of participants. Further evaluation should investigate whether these effects are sustained over time, and how they link to the broader process of Recovery.
Topic Area: Psychosocial Interventions