Therapeutic recreation treatments for anxiety disorders : an integrative review

Mental Illness is a growing concern in contemporary society, with one in five Australian adults experiencing a mental health condition per year. Anxiety and depression are the most common mental health conditions experienced by individuals aged between 16 - 64 years old in Australia. A mental health condition can impact on an individual’s physical, emotional, and mental well-being which effects the way they feel, think, and behave. An objective approach to managing mental health conditions such as Anxiety is through therapeutic recreation (TR) interventions. TR utilizes recreational activities and initiatives to improve and manage an individual’s physical, mental, and emotional well-being as well as facilitate an individual’s independence and self-determination. Therefore, this paper identified Anxiety and related disorders as an area of need within contemporary TR practice and developed a study to identify current best practice. The aim of this study was to illustrate what types of TR interventions support individuals with anxiety disorders, what therapeutic impact these have on individuals with anxiety disorders, tools to measure anxiety within TR practice and areas of need for further research. The findings of this study will also demonstrate that TR interventions have the potential to be considered as a modality of treatment in the management of a variety of Anxiety disorders in the future