Promoting well-being through group drumming with mental health service users and their carers

ABSTRACT

Purpose: Music has been linked with well-being across clinical and community settings. Yet, research has focused on assessment of single dimensions of well-being and on the typical receiver of support services. Acknowledging the burden that a caring role encompasses and integrating recent proposals for a multifaceted definition of well-being, we explore the extent to which group drumming interventions translate into multidimensional well-being change for both mental health service users and carers. Method: Thirty-nine participants engaged in one of a series of community drumming programmes were assessed via semi-structured interviews (n = 11) and focus groups (n = 28) at the end of each programme. Data were analysed using IPA. Results and Conclusion: Emotional, psychological and social dimensions of well-being emerged for both patients and carers, accounted for through six themes: (1) hedonia: positive affect and pleasant physical effects of drumming; (2) agency: initiative and sense of control; (3) accomplishment: non-specific and in relation to musical goals; (4) engagement, through focus and flow; (5) a redefinition of self, through self-awareness, construction of a positive identity, self-prospection and incorporation of a musical identity; and (6) social well-being, through connectedness and positive relationships. The potential of such interventions for clinical contexts is discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Well-being
• group drumming
• music
• mutual recovery
• positive mental health

Acknowledgments

This research was carried out as part of “Creative Practice as Mutual Recovery”, a Connected Communities project funded by the U.K.’s Arts and Humanities Research Council (grant ref. AH/K003364/1). The study protocol was approved by the U.K. N.H.S. National Research Ethics Service under approval reference 13/LO/1811 and registered under clinical trial number NCT01906892.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Data from interviews and focus groups were analysed separately. Emergent themes were regularly revisited and discussed within and across transcripts. As the themes were highly convergent, the two sets were merged into one overall table.

2. As conceptualized by Csikszentmihalyi (1990).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council [AH/K003364/1].