Article Review: Benefits of Camps

Name of article: Outcomes associated with participation in a therapeutic recreation camping programme for children from 15 European countries: Data from the ‘Barretstown Studies’

Name of journal: Social Science & Medicine

Name of authors: Gemma Kiernan, Michael Gormley, Malcolm MacLachlan

When and how I located this article: I located this article on November 1, 2011, using EBSCOhost on Murphy Library’s website.   

Synopsis of what I learned in this article:

     This article investigated if therapeutic recreation camps provide benefits to children with chronic illnesses (e.g. cancer, hemophilia, renal disease, etc.) and their siblings.  The camp used as the research setting was The Barretstown Gang Camp in Ireland that served children from 15 different European countries. 

     The following factors were measured using three surveys to determine the effects the camping experience had on the children’s health:  physical symptoms, affect, self-esteem, quality of life, and social support.  Of these factors, attending a TR camp was beneficial for children with a chronic illness in regards to their physical symptom distress and their affect.  For the siblings of children with chronic illnesses, the benefits of attending a TR camp related to quality of life.                         

                    

How I will apply this knowledge to my professional development: 

I feel that I can use this knowledge to increase my evidence based advocacy for Therapeutic Recreation camps!  I see myself the most passionate about getting into a camp setting in my future TR career, so this information will help me explain why what I do is important for people with disabilities!

Would I recommend this article for other TR students? Why or why not?

I would recommend this article for TR students who are interested in working in a camp setting, like myself, because, in addition to reporting the results of their study, the authors of this article also gave some interesting speculation on why the results turned out the way they did.  I felt this brought up some good thought provoking points about camps.

Reference:

Kiernan, G., Gormley, M., & MacLachlan, M. (2004, September). Outcomes associated with participation in a therapeutic recreation camping programme for children from 15 European countries: Data from the  ‘Barretstown Studies’. Social Science & Medicine, 59(5), 903-913. doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2003.12.010