Page 123 - ART FORM AND MENTAL HEALTH - Ingrid Pénzes

clients’ mental health.
The BSI is a self-rating instrument consisting of 53 items derived from the
SCL-90 and is used for the screening and assessment of psychopathology. The BSI was considered appropriate for patients without severe psychiatric disorders. Psychometric qualities were in line with the SCL-90 (alpha > 0.71) with good correlations with other instruments (Buwalda, et.al., 2012). The respondents scored the extent to which they experienced diverse psychological symptoms during the last week on a five-point Likert scale ranging from “a lot” to “not at all”. The BSI consists of three scales and nine subscales, including a general measure of psychopathology (total score). In this study, only the total score of the BSI was used because the art therapists described mental illness in general terms instead of specific disorders or symptoms.
The RS-nl is a self-rating instrument for screening resiliency. The respondents scored the extent to which they agree with 25 items on a four- point Likert scale ranging from “totally agree” to “totally disagree”. The RS-nl consists of two subscales: “personal competency” and “acceptance of self and live”. A high total score suggests adaptability, balance, and flexibility. Psychometric qualities are “good” for content and construct validity and for internal consistency (Windle, Bennett & Noyes, 2011).
The AAQ-II measures the amount of experiential acceptance, experiential avoidance, and psychological (in)flexibility. It consists of 10 items that respondents score using a seven-point Likert scale ranging from “never true” to “always true” (Bond, et al., 2011). A high total score suggests higher experiential acceptance or psychological flexibility and less experiential avoidance. Persons that score high on experiential avoidance generally use avoidance strategies that are related to repression of negative emotions and higher psychopathology. Psychometric qualities showed good internal consistency (Cronbach Alpha = .89) and construct validity of -0.67 to -0.79 on repression and psychological complaints (Bernaerts, et al., 2014; Fledderus, et al., 2012; Jacobs, et al., 2008).
Data-analysis
As art therapists related the combination of formal elements to mental health, Spearman correlation analysis2 was used to test whether the formal elements of “movement”, “dynamic” and “contour” were related to each
2 Spearman correlation looks at relationships between variables (Field, 2016).
Formal elements of art products indicate aspects of mental health | 121
5