Amenity or Necessity? Reevaluating the Role of Art Therapy in Hospital Care
Hospitals are facilities where both physical and mental patients seek treatment, yet not every form of treatment is considered part of essential clinical care. Art therapy is one such example: it is often treated as a supplementary service rather than a necessary part of a patient's treatment plan, and as a result many hospitals do not include it as a consistently funded clinical service. But this raises an important question: should art therapy still be considered an optional amenity when evidence suggests it has a measurable, positive effect on patients' conditions? Current research does not justify making art therapy mandatory in every hospital division, but the evidence is strong enough to support its reclassification as a clinical requirement in certain settings, particularly pediatric, oncology, palliative, and psychiatric units.
Art therapy is more than hanging artwork on hospital walls or offering patients recreational activities. Clinically, it involves the use of art by a trained therapist as part of a treatment process directed toward specific therapeutic goals, which distinguishes it from passive environmental therapies like background music or decor. Because it directly involves a clinician and is designed around therapeutic outcomes rather than ambiance, it should be evaluated as a necessity for certain patient populations, not as an extra comfort.
The most compelling evidence for art therapy's clinical effectiveness appears in pediatric care. Medical procedures can be terrifying for children, and processes like venipuncture often cause significant pain and anxiety. A randomized controlled trial examining art and play therapy found that children who received these interventions reported substantially lower pain than those treated with traditional methods alone: pain scores averaged roughly 4.45 in the control group compared with 1.15–1.18 among children receiving art or play based interventions (Mersal et al., 2025). This demonstrates that art based therapy makes a measurable difference in a child's immediate medical experience, not just their surroundings. Growing interest in digital and AI assisted art therapy for pediatric intensive care and oncology patients further shows that this field continues to develop, even though these newer approaches still require more research. If art therapy can relieve pain and anxiety during genuinely stressful procedures, excluding it from basic pediatric care because it is labeled "an amenity" is difficult to justify.
Evidence is similarly promising in oncology and palliative care, where long hospitalizations, painful procedures, and uncertainty take a heavy toll on quality of life. A meta analysis of twelve trials involving 587 cancer patients found that art therapy improved quality of life and reduced physical and psychological symptoms (Jiang et al., 2020). A separate systematic review found that art therapy positively influenced depression, anxiety, quality of life, and psychological distress in patients undergoing chemotherapy (Peng and Cheng, 2024). Oncology care is not just about treating disease; it also involves managing the emotional consequences of illness, which is exactly where art therapy appears most effective.
Psychiatric care provides another strong argument for treating art therapy as clinical rather than optional. Patients in psychiatric facilities may experience severe emotional distress and sometimes require isolation, restraint, or sedation. A six year study of an acute inpatient child and adolescent mental health unit found a statistically significant reduction in seclusion, physical restraint, and intramuscular sedation during periods when art therapy services were provided (Versitano et al., 2024). This suggests art therapy can do more than improve mood. it may directly affect how difficult situations are managed in psychiatric units.
Broader reviews support these findings. A narrative review of active visual art therapy in general hospitals highlighted a systematic review and meta analysis of 69 randomized controlled trials, which found that art therapy was associated with improvements in health outcomes. particularly in mental health and in physical conditions linked to impaired mental health, while also describing visual art therapy as a safe, cost effective complement to standard care (Martinelli et al., 2025; Joschko et al., 2024). This does not prove art therapy should be mandatory everywhere, but it does support the case that specific patient populations benefit meaningfully from it.
That said, the evidence is not consistent across all of medicine. Studies of general medical and surgical recovery show a wider range of results, and not every mental health condition responds equally well. A study of patients with schizophrenia, for instance, found art therapy to be neither clinically nor economically effective at improving psychological symptoms (Attard and Larkin, 2016). This inconsistency is a reason for hospitals to be cautious about treating art therapy as universally necessary, requiring every department to provide it could mean spending limited resources on an intervention that does not benefit every patient equally.
There is also an economic argument against automatic, hospital wide inclusion. A UK based systematic economic review found that group art therapy was cost effective compared with a wait list condition, but the authors emphasized that more research was needed to compare it economically with other treatment options (Uttley et al., 2015). Hospitals operate with limited resources, so any newly required service must demonstrate that its benefits justify its cost.
This limitation, however, supports a selective classification approach rather than excluding art therapy from clinical status altogether. Because the strongest evidence clusters around pediatric, oncology, palliative, and psychiatric care, there is no need to apply art therapy universally. Instead, hospitals can direct funding specifically toward the units most likely to benefit, managing resources responsibly while still recognizing art therapy as a legitimate clinical practice where the evidence supports it.
Ultimately, art therapy should not be classified as either universally necessary or universally optional. A tiered model better reflects the current research: in pediatric, oncology, palliative, and psychiatric units, art therapy should be treated as a clinical service hospitals are expected to provide when qualified practitioners are available. In other departments, it can remain optional until stronger evidence emerges. Such a model recognizes both the promise and the limits of current research. Art therapy may not yet belong in every hospital, but for certain patients, treating it as a luxury rather than a clinical intervention risks overlooking a valuable part of their care.
Works Cited
Attard, Angelica, and Michael Larkin. "Art therapy for people with psychosis: a narrative review of the literature." ScienceDirect, Nov. 2016, www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2215036616301468.
Jiang, X.H., et al. "Effects of art therapy in cancer care: A systematic review and meta-analysis." European Journal of Cancer Care, vol. 29, 2020, e13277. PubMed, pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32542749/.
Joschko, R., et al. "Active Visual Art Therapy and Health Outcomes: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis." JAMA Network Open, vol. 7, 2024, e2428709.
Martinelli, Valentina, et al. "Active Visual Art Therapy in the General Hospital: Facts and Challenges from an Ethical Perspective." International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, vol. 22, no. 2, 19 Feb. 2025, p. 316. PMC, pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11855915/.
Mersal, Fathia Ahmed, et al. "Art healing and play: Reducing pain and anxiety in hospitalized children during venipuncture." ScienceDirect, Dec. 2025, www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0882596325002520.
Peng, Juan, and Dan Cheng. "The effectiveness of therapeutic artmaking on depression, anxiety, quality of life, and psychological distress in cancer patients on chemotherapy: a systematic review of the literature." PubMed, 22 Mar. 2024, pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38519596/.
Uttley, L., et al. "The Clinical and Cost Effectiveness of Group Art Therapy for People with Non-Psychotic Mental Health Disorders: A Systematic Review and Cost-Effectiveness Analysis." BMC Psychiatry, vol. 15, 2015, p. 212. PubMed, pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25739466/.
Versitano, S., et al. "Art Therapy Is Associated with a Reduction in Restrictive Practices on an Inpatient Child and Adolescent Mental Health Unit." Journal of Mental Health, vol. 33, 2024, pp. 481–489.
