Assessing effects of mandala painting on anxiety of 9–14-year-old children with cancer

Background

There are various non-pharmacological ways to reduce anxiety, one of which is Mandala. The mandala can be considered as a tool that helps the patients to focus on themselves with the aim of getting back their normal internal balance.

Aim

The study aimed to determine the effect of mandala on anxiety of 9–14 year old children with cancer.

Materials and methods

This quasi-experimental study was conducted on 40 children with cancer who had mild-to-moderate anxiety, through a pre-test before the intervention started and a posttest after the intervention ended. Three weeks later, it was repeated on a single group of participant’s time series design from January to June 2019. Data were collected using the "Personal Attributes" and "Spielberger Trait Anxiety Questionnaire". Mandala was done daily for 45 min in six sessions, for children in their rooms. The data were analyzed by SPSS-25, and the repeated measures ANOVA statistical test was used in order to compare the levels of anxiety in time series.

Results

The mean age was 11.2 ± 1.79, and the mean age of diagnosis was 9.8 ± 2.2. The mean score of anxiety level in the children with cancer was (84.20 ± 10.26), (57.52 ± 15.65), and (56.62 ± 16.52) before the intervention, after the intervention, and one month after intervention, respectively. There was a statistically significant relationship between the mean scores of time series (P-value < 0.001).

Conclusion

Conducting the mandala sessions reduced the anxiety of children with cancer after the intervention and one month later. Mandala painting is therefore recommended as a complementary non-pharmacological treatment to reduce pediatric anxiety.