24 THE IMPROVEMENT OF STUDENTS’ ANXIETY AND DEPRESSIVE SYMPTOMS THROUGH THE COMBINATION OF ANTIDEPRESSANT MEDICATION AND ART COLOR TEACHING

Abstract Background The incidence of anxiety and depression symptoms in adolescents is constantly increasing. Although antidepressants can alleviate symptoms to some extent, they also come with side effects and dependency issues. Art color teaching, as an art therapy, provides individuals with a way to express emotions and stress through color and creative activities. Therefore, the study aims to explore the intervention effect of combining antidepressant drugs with art color teaching on improving students’ anxiety and depression symptoms. Methods The study selected 60 students from a certain middle school with anxiety and depression as the research subjects, aged between 15-19 years old. The study randomly divided patients into an experimental group and a control group, with 30 people in each group. The experimental group adopted a fusion intervention method of antidepressant medication combined with art color teaching, while the control group received conventional antidepressant medication treatment intervention. The intervention treatment period for the two groups was 5 months. Before and after the intervention, the Self Rating Depression Scale (SDS) and Self Rating Anxiety Scale (SAS) were used as evaluation tools for adolescents. Results During the treatment period, the SDS and SAS scores of patients in the experimental and control groups are shown in Table 1. According to Table 1, it can be seen that the experimental group showed significant improvement in SDS and SAS scale scores compared to the control group. The SDS score of the experiment before intervention was 56.13 ± 2.326 points, and after intervention, the score decreased to 51.13 ± 2.167 points, with a statistically significant difference between the two (P<0.05). In addition, the SAS score of the experimental group was 52.40 ± 1.352 points before intervention, and the score value decreased to 49.00 ± 1.512 points after intervention, indicating that there was also a statistical difference in SAS score before and after intervention (P<0.05). Based on the comprehensive comparison of the data in Table 1, it can be concluded that the scores of various scales in the experimental group were lower than those in the control group. Discussion The research results indicate that the integrated intervention method of using antidepressants combined with art color teaching has significant intervention and treatment effects on middle school students with depression and anxiety disorders. Compared to traditional drug therapy, combining art color teaching provides a supplementary method of non-drug therapy. This integrated intervention approach can not only improve treatment effectiveness, but also promote the recovery of patients’ social functions, which has important practical significance for improving patients’ quality of life.