ArticleBehavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland)2025
Therapist-Guided Versus Self-Guided Forest Immersion: Comparative Efficacy on Short-Term Mental Health and Economic Value.
Article in Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland), 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
What it found
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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.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed.
- Therapist-Guided Forest Therapy in Adolescents: Operational Feasibility and Anxiety-Symptom Signals from a Two-Classroom Quasi-Experimental Pilot Study.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Composition of Diagnostic Assessment Sheet Items for Developing a Personalized Forest Therapy Program for Patients with Depression: Application of the Delphi Technique.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Predictors of user satisfaction with forest healing services differ by health status.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
- A measurement study of the relationship between personality traits and learning emotions among music learners: a psychometric analysis in an educational context.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Forest therapy, guided by clinical professionals (psychologists or psychotherapists), is increasingly recognized as a preventive and complementary health practice with evidence-based therapeutic potential; however, the specific contribution of therapist guidance compared to self-guided immersion remains unclear. This retrospective study evaluated the short-term mental health outcomes of therapist-guided (TG) compared to self-guided (SG) forest immersion, based on the validated State-Trait Anxiety Inventory and Profile of Mood States questionnaires. Data were collected from 282 adults participating in eight paired TG-SG sessions conducted at the same forest sites across Italy. The results showed that TG sessions were associated with greater improvements in state anxiety, self-esteem, and total mood disturbance, with statistically significant effects in most cases. Therapist-led guidance also occasionally reduced interindividual variability, suggesting enhanced emotional regulation. An illustrative economic assessment, based on standardized psychometric improvements translated into quality-adjusted life years (QALYs), indicated that the TG sessions yielded approximately 1.7 times the annual per-person economic value of the SG sessions, outweighing the associated therapist-related costs. These findings suggest that TG forest therapy interventions deliver significant and economically quantifiable added value compared to SG experiences, supporting their inclusion in preventive health and mental well-being programs and justifying further longitudinal and cost-effectiveness investigations.
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What Socratic holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.