1. Healing Heritage:
The Therapeutic Value of Museums
Dr Helen Chatterjee, Deputy Director, UCL Museums +
Senior Lecturer in Biology, UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences
Images©UCLMuseums

2. Museum Object Therapy
OBJECTIVES:
• To explore the psychosocial impact of object handling on patients,
carers and staff
• To examine a variety of patients’ responses in relation to type of
object and patient background/health status
• To understand the underlying cognitive psychological processes
involved in museum encounters
• To develop an effective protocol for object handling in healthcare
settings
AIMS:
To consider the potential of engaging with heritage
objects as a therapeutic or enrichment activity
within healthcare.
1. Heritage in Hospitals

3. What we did…
• Develop protocol; gain medical ethics committee
approval; design handling sessions; agree data
collection methodology
• Over 300 museum object handling sessions with
hospital patients + care home residents
• Collect data on patients’ wellbeing before, during
and after 30-40 minute handling session
• Reflect on our experience of museums-in-
healthcare

4. Partners:
Healthcare settings:
•University College London
Hospitals (2 hospitals)
•Prospect Park Psychiatric
Hospital, Reading
•John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford
•Residential care homes
(London, Reading, Oxford)
Museums:
•>20 different partners, e.g.
•The British Museum
•Oxford University Museums
Service
•Reading Museums Service
•ACE
Think Tanks:
•NEF
•ILC-UK
Third Sector Agencies:
•The Alzheimer's Society
•Age-UK
•Royal Society for Public Health

5. Positive Affect Negative
Affect Scale
(PANAS) to assess
psychological wellbeing -
developed by Watson, Clark
and Tellegen (1988)
Quantitative methods: taken before and after session

6. EQ VAS (Visual Analogue
Scale)
to assess health status and
general wellbeing developed by
EuroQol Group (1990)

7. Experimental and Control conditions
Experimental condition:
Looking at, handling and
discussing museum objects
Implicates visual, tactile and
verbal modalities
Control condition: Looking at
and discussing photographs of
museum objects (the same set
of objects as used in the
experimental condition)
Implicates visual and verbal
modalities

8. Quantitative outcomes: Experimental Vs Control
Negative moodPositive mood
Pre-session
Post-session

9. HappinessWellness
0
20
40
60
80
100
Experimental Control
Pre-session
Post-session

10. Positive adjective scores
Psychiatric
hospital
Residential
carehome
Neurorehab
(outpatients)
Neurorehab
(inpatients)
Genmale
oncology
Genfemale
oncology
Gynae
oncology
Acute&
elderlycare
Surgical
admissions

11. Negative adjective scores
Psychiatric
hospital
Residential
carehome
Neurorehab
(outpatients)
Neurorehab
(inpatients)
Genmale
oncology
Genfemale
oncology
Gynae
oncology
Acute&
elderlycare
Surgical
admissions

12. Outcomes - qualitative inductive thematic analysis and grounded theory
New perspectives
Excitement, enjoyment, wonder, positive feelings (e.g. privilege,
luck, surprise)
Learning (including skills and confidence)
Energy, alertness, flow
Cheered up
Sense of identity, meaning making opportunities
Something different, inspiring
Calming, relieves anxiety
Passing time
Social experience
Tactile experience

13. Patients were
distracted from their
clinical surroundings
and felt healthier and
happier
Conclusions
Object handling had beneficial
effects on wellbeing though
unclear whether effects were
just psychological
Further studies need to
be carried out on a
greater variety of patients
as well as their carers
and healthcare staff
Findings used to develop
best practice manual for
care worker, museum and
hospital volunteer training
programmes

14. 2. Museums, Health and Wellbeing in practice

15. Museum-Wellbeing Umbrella (Thomson and Chatterjee, 2013)
Images © UCL Museums
3. Measuring the value of museum encounters

16. Outputs:
•>10 peer-viewed journal articles
•2 book chapters + 1 book: Museums, Health and Well-being by Helen
Chatterjee and Guy Noble – out 2013.
•Websites: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/museums/research/touch/wellbeing
•2 exhibitions, 4 workshops and >10 conference/workshop presentations
•Royal Society for Public Health: Arts and Award 2011.
Acknowledgements:
•AHRC for funding and support
•Collaborators and partners
•Hospital and care home participants and staff
Contact:
h.chatterjee@ucl.ac.uk