ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychiatry
Sec. Schizophrenia
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2025.1675521
This article is part of the Research TopicBiomarkers of Response to Interventions in PsychiatryView all 5 articles
Tree Drawing Test as an Auxiliary Tool for Evaluating Schizophrenia Treatment Outcomes
Provisionally accepted
- 1Institute of Applied Psychology, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang, China
- 2Department of Psychiatry, Liaocheng Veterans Hospital, Liaocheng, China
- 3Department of Medical Psychology,Second Affiliated Hospital of Naval Medical University, Shanghai, China
- 4Psychology Research Institute,Nanchang Vocational University, Nanchang, China
- 5Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications School of Digital Media and Design Arts, Beijing, China
- 6Department of Medical Psychology,No. 905 Hospital of PLA Navy, Shanghai, China
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Objective: This study aimed to investigate the changes in quantitative indicators of the Tree Drawing Projection Test across different treatment stages in patients with schizophrenia, in order to provide an objective basis for evaluating treatment efficacy. Methods: A self-controlled study design was employed. Sixty patients with schizophrenia underwent the Tree Drawing Projection Test at three time points: Week 1, Week 13, and Week 37. Differences in drawing indicators were analyzed across these time points. Results: Among patients with schizophrenia, the values of crown area, crown height, crown width, trunk area, and trunk height gradually increased from Week 1 to Week 37, showing observable differences (p < 0.05). In patients with a disease course of less than 10 years, the changes in trunk area, trunk height, and trunk width during the acute treatment period (Week 1 to Week 13: 5.66 ± 0.55, 2.18 ± 0.20, 0.68 ± 0.08, respectively) were significantly greater than those in patients with a disease course exceeding 10 years (p < 0.05). At Week 13, schizophrenia patients showed significant differences compared with healthy controls in crown area (99.67 ± 10.89), crown width (11.99 ± 2.15), trunk area (23.94 ± 4.23), trunk width (4.33 ± 0.92), root area (6.43 ± 1.61), and root height (0.76 ± 0.07) (p < 0.05). Conclusion: In schizophrenia patients, quantitative indicators of the Tree Drawing Projection Test—specifically crown area, crown height, and crown width—demonstrated steady increases across Week 1, Week 13, and Week 37, with these changes being statistically significant. These findings suggest that the Tree Drawing Projection Test can serve as a useful tool for assessing clinical treatment efficacy in schizophrenia.
Keywords: Tree drawing, Projective test, Schizophrenia, Quantitative indicators, treatment evaluation
Received: 29 Jul 2025; Accepted: 29 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Liu, Yuan, Zhang, Jin, Gao, Liu and Liu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Guorui Liu, 1278460789@qq.com
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