Published in Scientific Papers. Series B, Horticulture, Vol. LXVI, Issue 1
Written by Timea BURU, Erzsebet BUTA, Maria CANTOR
It can be stated that during the last two years, the access and activities involvement in nature, public green areas or gardens were reduced or even suppressed by the crisis caused by the COVID 19 pandemic. However, in many countries’ gardens were used in global public health crisis as a refuge to find peace of mind, pleasure, respite or relief. Therapeutic horticulture activities as gardening and people-plant interaction can offer them a meaningful time-spending outside. Several research studies indicates that this type of activities can increase people well-being and can reduce fatigue, attention disorder, anxiety, chronic stress or depression, and these long-term effects are frequently identified after an infection with coronavirus. The aim of present research was to analyse the influence of gardening activities in Quality-of-Life Issues like physiological, safety, social, esteem and self-actualization statements. In this regard, a questionnaire has been adapted including 15 statements to which respondents had to choose an answer from two possible options (affirmative or negative answer). The experimental study was conducted based on 27 people, who were involved in gardening activities for 3 days, 10 days or 6 weeks, depending on the group to which they belonged. The results indicated that all participants 'enjoyed working outside', most of them (96.3%) identified that 'gardening is working with nature'. Even if 25 people stated that 'the green area is a good place to meet people', not everyone enjoyed working in group, because 63.0% of the said that they 'enjoyed working alone'. Regarding the conducted gardening activities during the three study trials, most of them (96.3%) 'wish to have the opportunity to attend regularly public horticultural therapy activities (gardening)'.
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