Computerized Art Therapy Assessment for Depression

In this paper we discuss the use of computerized art therapy assessments to screen for mental disorders. These types of assessments have several advantages: They are cross cultural, they can collect both psychological and physiological aspects that manual assessments cannot measure, and they can act as interventions.
We have developed DFEATS, a digital version of the Formal Elements Art Therapy Scales (FEATS), a depression assessment tool. A large study using a crowd sourcing platform revealed that subjects express strong and significant preference for the use of the art therapy assessment tool over the use of traditional questionnaires. Moreover, users who suffered from higher levels of depression expressed even stronger preference for the art therapy assessment over the use of questionnaires. However, DFEATS did not provide sensitive enough detection of depression. Therefore, we conclude that there are great benefits from using art therapy as a source for interventions in the digital world, while more studies are needed to find ways to best develop digital art therapy assessments.