Participants
depressive, depression, Depression, anxiety
MAY, RECRUITMENT
All experimental procedures and protocols of the current study were approved by the Korea University Institutional Review Board (protocol no. KUIRB-2022-0218-03, 05/04/2022), and all methods were performed in accordance with the relevant guidelines and regulations. A total of 291 participants were recruited from 11 institutions across Korea, including senior welfare centers (n = 96, 33%), medical centers (n = 67, 23%), local universities (n = 45, 15.5%), botanical gardens (n = 33, 11.3%), special schools (n = 17, 5.8%), community center (n = 19, 6.5%), and mental health center (n = 14, 4.8%). Since this study was multi-site trial, recruitment period (from May to June 2022) was slightly various depending on each institution’s situation. Even though recruitment period was different, recruitment process, screening tools, measures, and therapeutic gardening program were conducted identically for all the institutions. The inclusion criteria were as follows: (1) age over 13, (2) had mild depressive or anxiety symptoms. For participants under the age of 18, parental consent was obtained to ensure their involvement in the study. Screening for the depression and anxiety was based on the Mental Health Screening Tool for Depression (MHS:D)After determining eligibility, participants were assigned to either the therapeutic gardening group (n = 192) or the control group (n = 99) according to the situation at the recruitment center. An adequate sample size was estimated using G*power version 3.1. software