POMS Questionnaire: Measuring Mood Before and After Forest Therapy
Forest therapy, or forest bathing, is an increasingly familiar way of reconnecting with nature and supporting wellbeing. To observe changes in mood before and after a forest therapy experience, the POMS questionnaire (Profile of Mood States), which I use in my work as a forest therapy guide, can be a useful self-report tool. 📄
If you are reading this because you are considering becoming a forest therapy guide yourself, discover my practical mini-guide before choosing a forest therapy training course.
Thank you for your interest in the POMS questionnaire. I hope this overview will be useful in your personal or professional practice.
Contents:
What is the POMS questionnaire?
The POMS questionnaire is a psychometric instrument designed to assess changes in mood states and emotional state. The original POMS was developed by McNair, Lorr and Droppleman. Several abbreviated versions were later proposed, including the Grove and Prapavessis version developed for sport and exercise settings. POMS and short-form mood scales have since been used in many research contexts, including studies of experiences in natural environments.
What is it used for?
POMS can be used to track self-reported mood before and after a forest therapy walk or a training day for people learning to become a guide.
To observe possible changes associated with a forest therapy experience, it is useful to complete the questionnaire BEFORE and AFTER the session.
What does the POMS questionnaire look like?
POMS is usually presented as a list or table containing a series of items describing different mood states — for example tension, anger, fatigue, vigour and other feelings or states.
How do you complete POMS?
Participants rate the intensity they feel for each item. Scores can then be grouped into mood subscales and, depending on the version used, combined into an overall mood-disturbance score before and after the session.
Many abbreviated POMS formats use a 0-to-4 response scale, from “not at all” to “extremely”.
POMS is interpreted through mood dimensions rather than a single simplistic score. Lower scores for tension, fatigue, anger or depressed mood may indicate improvement, while vigour is interpreted in the opposite direction. When a Total Mood Disturbance composite is calculated, a lower result generally reflects less mood disturbance.
Why use the POMS questionnaire?
Using POMS can offer several advantages, which is why it may be useful in a forest therapy context.
For training participants or people joining a forest therapy walk
Completing POMS can help you notice how your self-reported mood changes around a forest therapy experience. Comparing scores before and after a forest session can provide a concrete snapshot of changes in how you report feeling.
And who knows?
The experience may even make you want to do it again. 😉
For current and future forest therapy guides
For forest therapy guides, the tool can also be useful because it allows them to collect self-reported data before and after a session and observe changes experienced by participants. These data are not, however, an objective clinical measure.
The information gathered can then help a guide reflect on and improve their teaching and facilitation methods — transmission being something particularly close to my heart.
Case study: how POMS gave me another perspective on forest therapy
The day I decided to introduce POMS into my training programme and nature walks
One day I wondered: why not ask participants to complete a short mood questionnaire in the morning, before beginning their immersion in a park or forest? I put the idea into practice straight away. 💡
Looking through the first questionnaires, I realised how strongly participants sometimes reported anxiety, nervousness or fatigue before the session. Some people described themselves as feeling quite depleted.
POMS is not a clinical diagnosis.
But it can offer a framework for noticing your current mood in a non-diagnostic context. Comparing before-and-after responses may help make perceived changes more visible, without replacing psychological or medical assessment when that is needed.
Important: POMS and forest therapy never replace medical advice, clinical assessment or appropriate mental-health care in the presence of significant psychological distress. A forest therapy guide is not acting as a clinician, and my own shortened worksheet is intended only as a practical reflection tool for forest therapy sessions.
Looking at the before-and-after responses
At the end of a session, after spending time outdoors and practising mindful attention (meditation, contemplation, gratitude...) participants completed the questionnaire again after their forest therapy experience.
The changes in some of their answers were striking. 😶
For many participants, negative-mood scores were lower, alongside higher reported vigour or wellbeing. These are informal observations from my sessions rather than the results of a controlled study, and participants complete the questionnaire freely without being directed towards any particular response.
Adapting the idea for my own forest therapy sessions
During the walks and training sessions I lead, I quickly found that a full-length mood questionnaire can be cumbersome to complete outdoors. 🌲😅
The original POMS contains many items and takes time to complete, which is not always practical during a nature-based session — especially when you are carrying paper outdoors.
That is why I created a simplified worksheet inspired by the questionnaire, designed to be more practical outdoors.
This condensed format helps participants focus on a small number of feelings quickly, and it is certainly easier for me to collect the sheets without carrying a folder full of A4 pages through the forest. 😂
This shortened worksheet is designed mainly as a practical before-and-after reflection tool for my sessions. Because it is my own adaptation rather than a formally validated psychometric version of POMS, its results should be interpreted cautiously and must not be used diagnostically.
You can access and download my simplified version, specifically adapted for forest therapy sessions, by completing the form in the Transmission Through Trees section at the bottom of the page.
Feel free to use it and send me your feedback.
Interested in the next forest therapy training dates?
→ Contact me directly 🥰
06 26 67 49 69
clotilde.naturo@gmail.com
In conclusion
POMS can be a useful tool for observing changes in self-reported mood around a forest therapy experience. For participants who are curious or sceptical, before-and-after responses can make their own perceived changes easier to notice. 🌳
Used thoughtfully in training programmes or nature walks, a mood questionnaire can also help forest therapy guides reflect on participants’ experiences and adapt their methods while remaining clear about the limits of self-report data. 👏
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