This study targeted medical workers, who are currently being subjected to an excessive workload and emotional stress during the COVID-19 outbreak. Various treatment programs, such as a relaxation program to relieve stress, a walk in the forest, and woodworking were provided to the participants as forest healing therapies. We enrolled 13 medical workers (11 females, 2 males). Before and after forest healing therapy, stress and sleep-related questionnaires and levels of salivary cortisol, dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate (DHEA-S), and melatonin were measured and compared. The improvement of the perceived stress scale and the decrease of DHEA-S, a stress index, showed statistically significant results. However, although this study was conducted with a small number of participants and has a limitation in that the therapy occurred over a short period of only 1 night and 2 days, the trend of supporting results remains positive. As such, the authors propose forest healing therapy as one intervention to relieve the job stress for this group of workers
【저자키워드】 COVID-19, Stress, Sleep, healing, forest, Medical workers, 【초록키워드】 Treatment, Perceived stress, therapy, melatonin, Intervention, COVID-19 outbreak, questionnaire, Therapies, emotional, participant, positive, females, salivary, decrease, males, enrolled, occurred, conducted, provided, statistically significant, were measured, 【제목키워드】 Program, Quality, worker, Effect,