Effects of Painting-Based Art Interventions on Mental Health Outcomes: A Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials.

Mental health issues, such as depression and anxiety, are rising globally, and while conventional therapies like medications and psychotherapy remain common, they face limitations, including side effects and accessibility. This highlights the need for effective non-pharmacological interventions. Painting-based art interventions are a promising non-pharmacological approach for improving scale-assessed mental health outcomes, but quantitative evidence across age groups and outcome types remains limited. This meta-analysis synthesizes data from 45 randomized controlled trials to assess the impact of painting-based art interventions on mental health. The study explores potential moderating factors such as intervention duration, type of art, gender, and age group. A rigorous quality assessment of included studies was performed using Cochrane's risk of bias tool. The pooled effect size for painting-based interventions on mental health was significant, indicating a large positive impact. Subgroup analyses revealed that interventions of various durations, art forms, and gender compositions produced similar effects. Notably, older adults benefited the most from these interventions. Painting-based art interventions were associated with improved scale-assessed mental health outcomes. These findings should be interpreted as evidence for one visual art-making approach within broader art therapy practice, rather than as defining art therapy solely by painting-based methods.