The effect of visual arts education practices in hospital school on the life quality of children patients

Based on the assumption that the visual arts education practices carried out within the scope of the education applied in hospital schools affect the disease process positively, this study aims to determine whether positive developments have been achieved in patients' perception of the disease, their understanding of life, their relationships, and the process of overcoming the disease, as well as to reveal how much the recovery coefficients of pediatric patients are affected by visual arts education practices which are one of the alternative treatment methods in this context. Accordingly, visual arts education practices were carried out for chronically ill children between the ages of 8 and 16 who benefit from the Hospital School affiliated to Gazi University Hospital in Ankara and receive inpatient treatment and/or are subject to room education. In order to achieve the purpose of this research, the researcher used concurrent nested design as one of the mixed research models, in the research process. Quantitative data were obtained using the Kid-Screen Test, one of the Kindl Health-Related Quality of Life Scales, and the SPSS-21 package program was used to compare the scores of the scale. The assumption of normal distribution of the obtained scores was tested by looking at the Shapiro-Wilk statistics. It was observed that the Shapiro-Wilk statistic was significant (p<.05), that is, it did not exhibit a normal distribution. At the same time, non-parametric (non-parametric) test statistics were preferred instead of parametric test statistics, due to the limited number of children in the study group. The difference between the pre-test and post-test scores of the children regarding the scale, and the difference between the post-test and retention test scores were examined by using "The Wilcoxon Matched-Pairs Signed-Ranks Test for Two Dependent Samples". As for the qualitative aspect of the study, the researcher used case study method and descriptive analysis. As a result, it was concluded in this study that providing visual arts education practices to pediatric patients who benefited from hospital school education increased the health-related quality of life of the patients at a level that would make a statistically significant difference.