SynthesisFrontiers in psychology2025
How duration and frequency influence horticultural therapy's effect on depressive symptoms: evidence from a meta-analysis.
Synthesis in Frontiers in psychology, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed.
- Article
- Timing for green prescription: comparing the immediate and cumulative effects of different duration horticultural therapy programs on college students' mental health.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Short-term responses across two sequential plant-based activity sessions: an exploratory fixed-order pilot study.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Exploring the preferences of college students for horticultural therapy activities based on a new classification framework.Scientific reports · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
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Abstract
Background: Horticultural therapy (HT) has been documented to significantly intervene in depressive symptoms, but the effect of temporal characteristics is unclear. Methods: 11 databases were searched updated by 12th October 2024. 33 studies were included through quality assessment. A standardized mean difference (SMD) employing a random-effects model was used to assess the effect size of HT intervention for depressive symptoms, and the effect size was compared for different frequency, duration, session duration subgroups. Results: Overall, HT interventions for depressive symptoms were effective (SMD = -0.95). For intervention frequency, less than 3 times weekly (SMD = -1.21) was superior to 3 and more times weekly. For intervention duration, 5-8 weeks (SMD = -1.75) was superior to shorter (≤ 4 weeks) and longer (≥ 9 weeks) programs. For session duration, more than 60 min (SMD = -1.35) was superior to shorter ones. Optimal effects may emerge when implementing less than 3 HT sessions weekly, each lasting over 60 min, for a duration of 5-8 weeks. Conclusion: This study revealed the influence of temporal characteristics on the effectiveness of HT intervention for depressive symptoms. Since most of the included studies were conducted in Asia, the conclusions can better guide HT practices for Asian cultural groups. Systematic review registration: https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO/view/CRD42024523923, CRD42024523923.
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