Drum Circles and the Effect on Wellbeing in a Community Setting

Abstract

Background: Wellbeing plays an essential role in a complete and health community. Participatory arts interventions are popular to address wellbeing. Participatory drum circles can lead to social resilience, emotional completeness, and mental health benefits. The literature in the field of arts in health demonstrate the specific ways a drum circle may affect wellbeing through socialization, rhythmic entrainment, and expression. Although there are many great resources, many lack the specific tools to facilitate a drum circles as it pertains to specific technique and styles often utilized in percussion in the field of arts in health.

Methods: The project used a mixed methods research design. A convergent mixed methods design will be used to collect quantitative data from the Warwick Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale and the qualitative data will be received from a focus group. The results will be compared with the hopes of yielding similar themes.

Results: The results of the Warwick Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing scale demonstrate an increase of the average wellbeing score after the four-week intervention by 2.88 points. The focus group’s final themes were 1) the core of the drum circle is driven from the facilitator fostering a strong sense of community that supports being inclusionary, respectful, and social; 2) Learning new skills in a community group benefits participants confidence because a) the curriculum progresses naturally and easily and b) rhythm is an innate and natural part of everyday life for individuals, making drum circles more comfortable.