The Culture, Health & Wellbeing Alliance has come together with the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Arts, Health and Wellbeing; the LENs (lived experience network), National Centre for Creative Health; WHO Collaborating Centre for Arts & Health; and University College London to submit comments on the new NICE draft guidelines on Depression in adults: treatment and management.
Please find our joint commentary attached here. A quote from the commentary is below:
"Creative, cultural and nature-based approaches to addressing depression are not acknowledged anywhere in these draft guidelines (based on a keyword search: art, music, creative, cultural, nature). While the evidence of the effectiveness for those forms of intervention is diverse and less clinical / RCT-centric, this seems a needless oversight given that such approaches can correspond, enhance or be adapted to align with some of the main treatment options in these guidelines, and can provide support for patients experiencing significant waiting times for referrals and treatments."