None listed
Conditions
Brief summary
The current study aims to investigate whether viewing landscape artworks could improve wound healing and decrease stress levels during a wounding procedure and an anticipatory stressor. This study will use a simple tape stripping paradigm as an experimental wounding procedure. Tape-stripping is a procedure which removes the top-layer of skin through the repeated application of tape. This procedure is a non-invasive and minimally painful method to assess wound healing in humans. Before the tape-stripping procedure, participants will be randomised to one of two groups and will either view a series of landscape artworks, or scrambled versions of those artworks as a control for the rest of the session. After the tape-stripping procedure, participants will be told that they will be completing the Trier Social Stress Test developed by Kirschbaum, Pirke and Hellhammer (1993). This stress task is used as it has been shown to reliably induce a physiological and psychological stress response in most people (Miller & Kirschbaum, 2013) and has widespread uses in many different areas of stress research. However, participants will not actually be completing the tasks and instead this will be an anticipatory stressor only. An anticipatory stressor was chosen for this study as it represents the stress patients experience in a waiting room, while waiting for a medical procedure. If an artwork intervention was shown to reduce stress levels and improve wound healing then landscape artwork could easily be placed in waiting rooms to help curb the negative effects of this anticipatory stress. The aim of this study is to investigate whether viewing landscape artworks can reduce stress and improve skin barrier recovery from a tape stripping wound during the wounding procedure and an anticipatory stressor compared to viewing scrambled versions of this artwork. It is hypothesised that the participants who view the landscapes will have improved skin barrier recovery from an experimental tape stripping wound, decreased stress as indexed by self-report and heart rate, and improved mood levels compared to the control group, who viewed the scrambled images.
Interventions
Participants will be randomized to one of two groups; artwork and control. Participants will be asked to view a series of images at two time-points throughout the study; during a tape stripping procedure which removes the top-layer of skin through the repeated application of tape and during a 30 minute healing period, while the tape-stripping wound heals. This procedure is a non-invasive and minimally painful method to assess wound healing in humans. Before the 30 minute healing period begins, p
Participants will be randomized to one of two groups; artwork and control. Participants will be asked to view a series of images at two time-points throughout the study; during a tape stripping procedure which removes the top-layer of skin through the repeated application of tape and during a 30 minute healing period, while the tape-stripping wound heals. This procedure is a non-invasive and minimally painful method to assess wound healing in humans. Before the 30 minute healing period begins, participants will be told that at the end of the study they will be completing a laboratory stress task, in order to increase their stress levels. However, they will not actually be completing the stress task. Participants in the artwork condition will view a series of natural New Zealand landscape paintings during these two periods, while participants in the control condition will view digitally scrambled versions of these paintings. These scrambled versions, have the same colour of the original paintings, however, the pixels of the pictures have been mixed up so there is no longer an idea of the content of the image. There will be 20 of each image, and the images will be on screen for 1 minutes each. Participants will not be asked to continuously view the images, and can look away if they want. The amount of time they are looking at the images vs looking away will be quantified to control for in the analysis of the data. The intervention will only be delivered to the participants in a one-off, two hour session. This procedure will occur in a research clinic at the University of Auckland and will be conducted by a University doctoral candidate.
Sponsors
The University of Auckland
Study design
Allocation
Randomised controlled trial
Intervention model
Parallel
Primary purpose
Treatment
Masking
Open (masking not used)
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
All
Age
16 Years to No maximum
Healthy volunteers
Yes
Inclusion criteria
Over 16 years of age Can read and write in English fluently Can provide written informed consent
Exclusion criteria
Individuals will be excluded from the study if they; • Are allergic to tape or adhesives • Have an inflammatory skin disorder • Taking medication that affects the immune system (e.g. antibiotics or systemic corticosteroids)
Outcome results
None listed