Questionnaires assessing the anxiety alleviation benefits of indoor plants for self-isolated population during COVID-19

Abstract

Indoor plants have great benefits to humans, including physical health, cognition and emotion through their repair and purification capabilities, but most of these positiv e effects have not been quantified and valued. In this study, the Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), when people must be self-isolated at home and avoid outdoor activities in China, was utilized adequately and the influence of indoor plants was analyzed via the 2031 valid questionnaires, in which indoor plant status, interest degree, interaction frequency and anxiety alleviation were surveyed. Results showed that indoor plants were widely cultivated especially in the living room. Compared to before the COVID-19, the interest degree with indoor plants increased by ∼33% and their overall interaction frequency increased by ∼78% during the COVID-19. More than 70% of the surveyed people exhibited anxiety during the COVID-19, and the overall anxiety level was 1.17 (between 'Slight anxiety' and 'Anxiety'). And ∼61% of the surveyed people supported that indoor plants could alleviate self-isolation anxiety, and the anxiety alleviation degree was 0.79 (tend to 'Releasing the certain anxiety'), which showed that indoor plants had also shown to have an indirect psychological effect on anxiety alleviation.