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The health impact of residential retreats: a systematic review

Overview of attention for article published in BMC Complementary Medicine and Therapies, January 2018
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  • In the top 5% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (95th percentile)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (92nd percentile)

Mentioned by

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5 news outlets
blogs
1 blog
twitter
6 X users
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2 Facebook pages

Citations

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22 Dimensions

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225 Mendeley
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Title
The health impact of residential retreats: a systematic review
Published in
BMC Complementary Medicine and Therapies, January 2018
DOI 10.1186/s12906-017-2078-4
Pubmed ID
Authors

Dhevaksha Naidoo, Adrian Schembri, Marc Cohen

Abstract

Unhealthy lifestyles are a major factor in the development and exacerbation of many chronic diseases. Improving lifestyles though immersive residential experiences that promote healthy behaviours is a focus of the health retreat industry. This systematic review aims to identify and explore published studies on the health, wellbeing and economic impact of retreat experiences. MEDLINE, CINAHL and PsychINFO databases were searched for residential retreat studies in English published prior to February 2017. Studies were included if they were written in English, involved an intervention program in a residential setting of one or more nights, and included before-and-after data related to the health of participants. Studies that did not meet the above criteria or contained only descriptive data from interviews or case studies were excluded. A total of 23 studies including eight randomised controlled trials, six non-randomised controlled trials and nine longitudinal cohort studies met the inclusion criteria. These studies included a total of 2592 participants from diverse geographical and demographic populations and a great heterogeneity of outcome measures, with seven studies examining objective outcomes such as blood pressure or biological makers of disease, and 16 studies examining subjective outcomes that mostly involved self-reported questionnaires on psychological and spiritual measures. All studies reported post-retreat health benefits ranging from immediately after to five-years post-retreat. Study populations varied widely and most studies had small sample sizes, poorly described methodology and little follow-up data, and no studies reported on health economic outcomes or adverse effects, making it difficult to make definite conclusions about specific conditions, safety or return on investment. Health retreat experiences appear to have health benefits that include benefits for people with chronic diseases such as multiple sclerosis, various cancers, HIV/AIDS, heart conditions and mental health. Future research with larger numbers of subjects and longer follow-up periods are needed to investigate the health impact of different retreat experiences and the clinical populations most likely to benefit. Further studies are also needed to determine the economic benefits of retreat experiences for individuals, as well as for businesses, health insurers and policy makers.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 6 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 225 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Unknown 225 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Master 27 12%
Student > Bachelor 26 12%
Student > Ph. D. Student 23 10%
Other 11 5%
Researcher 9 4%
Other 38 17%
Unknown 91 40%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Nursing and Health Professions 31 14%
Psychology 24 11%
Medicine and Dentistry 23 10%
Social Sciences 8 4%
Neuroscience 8 4%
Other 34 15%
Unknown 97 43%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 49. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 13 June 2022.
All research outputs
#761,151
of 23,577,654 outputs
Outputs from BMC Complementary Medicine and Therapies
#106
of 3,712 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#19,169
of 445,955 outputs
Outputs of similar age from BMC Complementary Medicine and Therapies
#9
of 123 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 23,577,654 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 96th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 3,712 research outputs from this source. They typically receive more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 9.0. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 97% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 445,955 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 95% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 123 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 92% of its contemporaries.