Effects of Participatory Art-Based Activity On Health of Older Community-Dwellers: The Singapore Art-Health Randomized Control Trial Study

Background: Population aging continues to be global health challenge. The prevalence of longstanding age-related conditions such as worsening physical, social, and mental health is expected to increase exponentially with a rapidly ageing population. The practice of participatory art in various settings has been found to be effective in the promotion, prevention and management of health and wellbeing conditions across the life span. However, its effect on health condition among the older population, particularly in the Asian context remains to be investigated. In Montreal, findings from a pilot study provided strong evidence to show that a 12-week, standardized "Art-Health" participatory art program had multidimensional positive effects on the health outcomes of older community dwelling participants including improvements in wellbeing, quality of life, and frail condition.

Current Proposal: The current research will adopt and modify the Montreal Art-Health participatory art framework with local cultural specificity (i.e. The Singapore Art-Health Intervention), and tests its effectiveness in healthy and wellness promotion among a sample of Singaporean older adults via a randomized control trial.

Research Design: The study adopts a participatory action research paradigm and a single-site, open-label Randomized Control Trial (RCT) design to develop and examine the effect of a standardized 12-week museum-based participatory art activity on health condition, wellbeing, and quality of life in older community dwellers.

Sampling and Randomization: Allowing for an attrition rate of 5% at follow-up, a target sample of 110 provides 90% power to detect an effect size of 0.55 (based on the results of the pilot study) between the intervention group and the control group at 5% level of significance (two-tailed test). Participants will be randomized into an intervention group of a passive control group. Participants in the intervention group will be invited to participate in the 12-week Singapore A-Health Intervention held at the National Gallery Singapore.

Intervention Design: The Singapore Art-Health Intervention will span 12 weeks, with each weekly session lasting for two hours. The program is designed to impart basic art appreciation skill (formal analysis in art) and art making techniques to participants through engagement with the collection at the museum.