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. 2017 Jul 5;14(7):728.
doi: 10.3390/ijerph14070728.

The Effects of a Campus Forest-Walking Program on Undergraduate and Graduate Students' Physical and Psychological Health

Kyung-Sook Bang  1 , Insook Lee  2 , Sungjae Kim  3 , Chun Soo Lim  4 , Hee-Kyung Joh  5   6   7 , Bum-Jin Park  8 , Min Kyung Song  9
Affiliations

The Effects of a Campus Forest-Walking Program on Undergraduate and Graduate Students' Physical and Psychological Health

Kyung-Sook Bang et al. Int J Environ Res Public Health. .

Abstract

We conducted a campus forest-walking program targeting university and graduate students during their lunchtime and examined the physical and psychological effects of the program. We utilized a quasi-experimental design with a control group and a pretest-posttest design. Forty-seven men (M = 25.5 ± 3.8 years) and 52 women (M = 23.3 ± 4.3 years) volunteered to participate (experimental group n = 51, control group n = 48). The intervention group participated in campus forest-walking program once a week for six weeks; they were also asked to walk once a week additionally on an individual basis. Additionally, participants received one lecture on stress management. Post-tests were conducted both just after the program ended and three months after. A chi-square test, t-test, and repeated measures analysis of variance were used to evaluate the effects of the program. Health promoting behaviors (F = 7.27, p = 0.001, ES = 0.27) and parasympathetic nerve activity (F = 3.69, p = 0.027, ES = 0.20) significantly increased and depression (F = 3.15, p = 0.045, ES = 0.18) significantly decreased in the experimental group after the intervention compared to the control group. In conclusion, using the campus walking program to target students during their lunchtime is an efficient strategy to promote their physical and psychological health.

Keywords: body composition; college students; depression; forests; health promotion; walking.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest. The founding sponsors had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript, or in the decision to publish the results

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Recruitment of participants.
Figure 2
Figure 2
The conceptual model of the campus forest-walking program.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Comparison of the mean physical activity level (A) and health promotion behavior score (B) between the experimental and control groups at pre-, post-, and follow-up test. Exp.: experimental group; Cont.: control group; A.U.: arbitrary units.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Comparison of the parasympathetic nerve activity (A) and mean depression score (B) between the experimental and control groups in pre-, post-, and follow-up tests.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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