The Effect of Regular Aerobic Exercise on both Positive and Negative Symptoms and Quality of Life of Male Patients with Chronic Schizophrenia: A Double Blinded Study

Abstract

Abstract: Background: Nowadays, psychiatric disorders is as one of the greatest problems of human societies that among them depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and psychosis and dementia disorders are the growing world's largest global burden of the disorders. Having a chronic psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia the patient prone to stress, dependence and problems in life skills, employment and social environment. The evidences show that sport improves mental health, self-confidence, cognitive performance and on the other hand it decreases anxiety and depression. Despite of the limited studies about the positive effects of exercise on patients with schizophrenia, sport variables underlying these effects has not been quite clear and evaluated. The present was conducted to investigate the effect of regular aerobic exercise on both positive and negative symptoms and quality of life of male patients with chronic Schizophrenia who are hospitalized at RAZI Psychiatric hospital, TABRIZ, IRAN

Materials and Methods: The present study, which has been done on 68 male patients with chronic Schizophrenia, is a double-blinded clinical trial study. Randomly chosen samples have been categorized in two groups of : intervention(34 patients) and control (34 patients).The intervention group samples participated in the designed exercise program during 24 sessions over 8 weeks, 11hours in total. The quality of life and positive and negative symptoms for both groups were assessed in two steps before starting the exercise program and also after that through Standard Schizophrenic quality of life scale questionnaire (SQLS) and Standard Anderson Positive and Negative questionnaire (SAPS.SANS). The data of both groups were compared using statistical tests, T-test, paired t-test, and Chi-square test.

Findings: Based on these findings, the mean age of participants 37/82 ± 7/14 years. Most of the participants in the primary education level and most of them were single. The results demonstrated that there is no significant relationship between before intervention in terms of positive and negative symptoms and quality of life of disease (P>0.05). Also the results demonstrated that there is no significant relationship between the groups after intervention in terms of positive symptoms and quality of life. On the other hand, the results indicated that there is a significant statistical difference between the average total score of negative symptoms and motivation dimension quality of life in both case and control group after intervention (P<0.05).

Conclusion: Regular aerobic exercise training in patients with schizophrenia could be a strong complementary therapy is to control symptoms and improve quality of life. Health system officials and managers can implement programs and solutions for creating regular aerobic exercises for patients with Schizophrenia in order to reduce disease symptoms and improve the rate of recovery in patients with chronic mental disorders