36 THE IMPACT OF ART THERAPY ON THE MENTAL HEALTH OF TEACHER EDUCATION STUDENTS

Abstract Background Regarding the mental health issues of teacher education students, research focuses on the impact of occupational and social factors on students’ mental health. Students usually have a good acceptance of art therapy methods. In recent research, painting art therapy has been a commonly used scientific method, and its colors, lines, etc. fully reflect the psychological state of the painter, which is helpful for physicians’ assessment and treatment. Research on the use of painting art therapy and the College Students’ Psychological Health Quality Scale to reflect the psychological health status and intervention effects of teacher education students, providing better methods for shaping students’ mentality and relieving stress in the future. Methods The study selected 350 sophomore students majoring in teacher education from a comprehensive university and collected data using the Symptom Check List (SCL-90). Then, 116 students were randomly selected and divided into an experimental group (58 people) and a control group (58 people). The experimental group underwent painting art therapy six times within two weeks, each lasting 90 minutes. After the treatment, the two groups were evaluated using the College Student Psychological Quality Scale (CSPS). Finally, the scoring results were subjected to SPSS 25.0 statistical analysis and Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA) to compare the psychological health status before and after treatment. Results In the CSPS scoring system, the interaction effect of students’ overall mental health quality is significant, with F (1,69) =30.60, P<0.001, and ηP2=0.32. In the adaptive dimension, the score for emotional adaptation reached 3.84 ± 0.75, and the interaction effect was significant and statistically significant (P<0.01), indicating that painting art therapy has a positive guiding effect on students’ mental health. The results are shown in Table 1. Discussion Painting art therapy has become a mature and reliable individual psychological treatment program in art therapy due to its advantages of easy acceptance and authenticity in reflecting problems. The results show that painting art therapy has a positive impact on the mental health of teacher education students, which is conducive to alleviating employment, interpersonal, and social pressures, and thus shaping students’ confident and optimistic psychological state. Funding No. XJK23CZY114.