IMPROVEMENT OF MENTAL HEALTH AND DEPRESSION OF COLLEGE STUDENTS BY PHYSICAL EXERCISE

Revista Argentina de Clínica Psicológica 2020, Vol. XXIX, N°1, 373-378

DOI: 10.24205/03276716.2020.51 373

I

MPROVEMENT OF

M

ENTAL

H

EALTH AND

D

EPRESSION OF

C

OLLEGE

S

TUDENTS BY

P

HYSICAL

E

XERCISE

Kun Zuo

_{*, Qiang Yue}

Abstract

A sizable portion of college students in China have psychological disorders, but their symptoms have not reached the diagnostic criteria for depression. This paper aims to disclose the promotional effects of physical exercises on the depression of college students. Several physical exercise experiments were carried out on 63 college students with depressive tendency. The test scores of every student were computed against the Symptom Checklist-90 (SCL-90) and Self-Rating Depression Scale (SDS) before the exercises and after receiving 5 weeks, 8 weeks, 11 weeks, and 14 weeks of exercise. The results show that the scores of the students had statistically significant changes through the experiments, revealing a strong correlation between physical exercise and mental health; the mental health of the individuals was enhanced through periodical exercise; female and male students experienced different degrees of mental improvement through the exercises, because many symptom indices are related to specific physical activities and gender. The research findings promote the physical exercise intervention on college students with mild depression.

Key words: College Students, Physical Exercise, Mental Health, Depression.

Received: 16-03-19 | Accepted: 20-07-19

INTRODUCTION

Physical exercise is an important means for modern people to cultivate good psychological quality. The physical exercise, especially scientific physical exercise, is not only conducive to promoting the coordinated interaction and operation of human tissues and organs, and achieving the healthy development of individual life, but also help to improve the people’s mental health status (Clough, Mackenzie, & Mallabon et al., 2016). Targeted and appropriate exercise can improve people's negative emotions, such as alleviating or defusing the negative emotional experience brought about by stress in study, work and life, and further cultivate their good mental health status (Ferguson, Swann, & Liddle

1_{Shanghai Polytechnic University, sports department,}

shanghai 201209, China. 2_{Jianping High School, Art and}

sports teaching and research section, shanghai 200135, China.

E-Mail: [email protected]

et al., 2018). Good psychological state shaped through exercise can ensure the people to face various crises and challenges in the objective world with a positive attitude, and build and maintain good social relationships, thereby enhancing individual adaptability and confidence in life (Raglin, 1990). Some scholars have stated that physical exercise can be divided into individual sports and group sports exercises, which both can improve the individual's physical strength, reaction speed, flexibility and functional coordination to a certain extent, provided that there is a reasonable and scientific amount and intensity of exercises (Dunn & Jewell, 2010). Blind physical exercises may injure the body functions accidentally, and even cause people to resist sports, lose enthusiasm and increase irrational cognition of sports (Yu, Wong, & Lo et al., 2018). Physical exercise is not a once-and-for-all exercise. When it comes to some necessary interactions with others in physical exercise, it is unavoidable to have physical collisions, interpersonal conflicts, competitive

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pressures, etc. generated by cooperative sports. Without scientific treatment, it’s sure to bring physical discomfort and psychological trauma to the participants, and thus weaken the positive function of sports (Paluska & Schwenk, 2000). Therefore, in physical exercise, especially group projects, physical safety measures and psychological protection after excessive exercise must be taken (Jorge, 2008). In view of the negative and positive impacts of physical exercise, some scholars have encouraged the improvement of sports norms and the development of targeted sports according to the characteristics of individual development, thereby avoiding sports risks and exerting the positive impacts of sports, especially on mental health (Hansen,Sund, & Knudtsen et al., 2000).

According to the latest epidemiological data, in recent years, the number of college students with psychological disorders has reached 30%, especially for those colleges students with depression but not meeting the diagnostic criteria for depression (Faulkner & Biddle, 2001). These college students with mild depressive symptoms are collectively referred to as college students with depressive tendency. They often manifest strong and persistent low mood, irritability, anxiety, social fear, insomnia and neurasthenia, lack of motivation, and slow thinking behaviours (Nichols, Sanborn, & Essery, 2007). Some college students with depression tend to improve their depressive symptoms in certain degree through active physical exercise (Dolan, Houston, & Martin, 2011). Scholars in the psychological and medical profession have proposed to improve the mental health of individuals through exercises (Elina, Keijo, & Arja, 2010). Therefore, it’s of practical significance and research significance to implementing physical exercise interventions for college students with mild depression.

RESEARCH OBJECTS AND METHODS

Basic data of the research objects

College students with a mild depressive tendency were selected from Hongshan District, Wuhan City, Hubei Province during their learning period from September 2018 to June 2019. The diagnosis of mild depression was from the evaluation results in the China College Student Mental Health Scale developed by the Ministry

of Education. This scale is an important platform for the mental health status of college students, including 9 dimensions and 137 test scales. It draws on the six dimensions of SCL-90 such as somatization, anxiety, depression, paranoia, obsession, and psychosis, and adds 6 psychological dimensions with high incidence for college students: dependence, impulsivity, inferiority, retreat, sexual psychology, and attack. Based on the SCL-90 mental health assessment results of the school hospital, 200 college students with mild depressive tendency were randomly selected, and then the SDS test was performed, to confirm 63 students with mild depression by excluding the influencing factors such as somatic disorder, personality disturbance, and major changes in life. In addition, before the SDS Depression Scale test, the fifth item in the 18-item scale "Sexual function is normal" was changed to "I do not exclude interaction with the opposite sex" according to the actual situation of the students, while the contents of other scale options remained unchanged. The demographic data of 63 college students diagnosed with depression tendencies are shown in Tables 1 and 2.

Table 1 shows that 3 college students had a moderate to severe degree of depression, and the other students had moderate depression tendency. The semi-structured interviews found that these 63 depressive-prone college students were generally suffering from unhealthy behaviours such as intensive and persistent low mood, irritability, anxiety, social fear, insomnia and neurasthenia, lack of motivation, and slow thinking. Meanwhile, they have no directional and regular exercise habits, and usually like to live indoors. 32 boys spent most of their time indoors playing PC games such as

Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds and Honour of Kings etc., in order to replace and avoid the social fear outside; while the girls liked watching movies indoors or variety shows for a long time, etc., and nearly 50% were indulged in the story plot and can't extricate themselves, confusing reality and plot.

Research methods

To ensure the scientificity and validity of the experiment, the selected group in this study were required to treat the test seriously, and be prohibited of absence despite of their

IMPROVEMENT OF MENTAL HEALTH AND DEPRESSION OF COLLEGE STUDENTS BY PHYSICAL EXERCISE 375

Table 1.

Demographic data of 63 college students with depressive tendency

Number of cases Gender

(male / female, for example)

Age /year

Depression degree (severe / moderate to severe / mild)

63 32/31 20~25 0/3/60

Table 2.

Psychological problems and sports performance of college students with depressive

tendency

Number of college students

with depressive tendencies 63

Psychological problem expression

Morbid behaviours such as strong and persistent depression, irritability, anxiety, social fear, insomnia and neurasthenia, lack of motivation to learn, mental retardation, etc.

Sports situation

Students in this group had no directional and regular sports habits and were more residential. 32 boys were inclined to indoor games, and 31 girls were inclined to burn

dramas, watch variety shows and indulge in the plot.

participation in similar experimental tests before. In this study, 63 college students with depression tendencies participated in specially designed sports, and volunteered to select physical exercise associations designed by one mental health research centre in Wuhan, including the basketball club, badminton club, yoga club, and bodybuilding club, and rugby club. They were tested using Kandy's SDS scale before the training of different sports clubs, and after training for 5 weeks, 8 weeks, 11 weeks, and 14 weeks respectively. Figure 1 shows the overall research framework of this study.

Figure 1

.

Frame diagram of research ideas in

this paper

In this study, SPSS11.5 statistical software was used for data collection and mathematical statistics. The T-test was adopted to compare and analyse the mental health data of 63 depressive college students before and after physical exercise intervention to find out whether there were significant changes. According to the difference between the values before and after, the influence of exercise intervention on the mental health of college students with depressive tendency was analysed.

OVERALL EVALUATION RESULTS OF

MATHEMATICAL STATISTICS

The SDS assessment was performed for 4 times on the 5th, 8th, 11th, and 14th week after the 63 college students with depressive tendency participated in the sports clubs, and the final SCL-90 test was conducted for them by the same testers after the intervention experiment. Then, the intervention results before and after the experiment was analysed using mathematical statistics.

Table 3 shows that after the 14-week physical exercise, among these 63 college students with depressive tendency in Wuhan; there were very significant differences in interpersonal sensitivity, depression, and inferiority factors; significant differences in anxiety, retreat, and paranoid factors; no significant differences in somatization, obsessive-compulsive, attack, and psychotic tendency, and dependent factors. The above data indicate that physical exercise has a positive impact on the mental health of college students, especially having a improving effect on depression.

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Table 4 compares the SDS scores of 63 college students with depression in 5 different sports clubs at different training cycles. In Figure 2, taking the basketball association as an example, the SDS scores in the training cycle were visually presented in the form of a histogram.

The results in Table 4 indicate that before participating in the sports associations, there was no significant statistical difference in the SDS scores of depressive college students because the SDS values of the sports items were P>0.05; after participating in the sports associations for 5 weeks, 8 weeks, 11 weeks, and 14 weeks, differences in the SDS scores of these depressive college students before and after the experiment were presented in a gradient form, but the differences were not significant; after

Figure 2

.

The change of SDS score with the

time of exercise training

Table 3.

Statistical results of factor scores of SC-90 scale before and after exercise

intervention experiment

Factor (dimension of psychological problems) N Before intervention After intervention P value

Somatization 63 1.350.23 1.300.24 0.32

Obsessive-compulsive symptoms 63 1.860.42 1.750.34 0.07

Interpersonal sensitivity 63 1.910.38 1.540.53 0.005**

Depression 63 1.830.93 1.540.35 0.006**

Attack 63 1.900.64 1.520.32 0.06

Anxiety 63 1.870.53 1.760.34 0.04*

Retreat 63 1.450.54 1.350.43 0.004**

Paranoia 63 1.430.63 1.280.43 0.02*

Psychotic tendency 63 1.720.57 1.430.35 0.67

Dependence 63 1.350.98 1.220.78 0.74

Inferiority complex 63 1.890.59 1.560.58 0.003**

Note: the experimental results retain the two decimal places, * P < 0.05 means there is a significant difference, * P < 0.01 means there is a very significant difference.

Table 4.

Comparison of SDS scores of 63 college students with depressive tendencies in 5

sports associations in different training cycles (

x



s

)

Sports association

Before training

After 5 weeks of training

After 8 weeks of training

After 11 weeks of training

After 14 weeks of training

Basketball(n=16)

60.3111.60 t=5.24 P=0.060

59.8910.87 t=4.97 P=0.045

58.8710.02 t=4.35 P=0.041

57.019.82 t=4.20 P=0.03

49.028.3 t=4.15 P=0.00089

Badminton (n=12)

59.4210.65 t=4.29 P=0.070

58.898.75 t=5.14 P=0.049

57.366.68 t=4.56 P=0.005

56.466.21 t=4.45 P=0.003

53.365.78 t=4.13 P=0.000241

Yoga(n=14)

58.4711.23 t=5.03 P=0.057

57.3610.89 t=4.15 P=0.03

56.709.89 t=5.13 P=0.006

55.567.89 t=4.89 P=0.0035

54.679.01 t=4.90 P=0.000142

Yoga(n=10)

59.648.77 t=4.56 P=0.071

58.817.89 t=4.32 P=0.048

57.728.99 t=4.13 P=0.037

56.746.67 t=4.59 P=0.005

55.576.89 t=4.45 P=0.000134

Rugby(n=11)

58.899.03 t=5.26 P=0.06

56.786.45 t=5.12 P=0.04

56.014.56 t=5.01 P=0.02

55.243.56 t=4.93 P=0.013

54．352.56 t=4.89 P=0.000123

Note: numerical comparison before and after the experiment, * P < 0.05 means significant, ** P < 0.01 means significant, *** P < 0.001 means very significant.

IMPROVEMENT OF MENTAL HEALTH AND DEPRESSION OF COLLEGE STUDENTS BY PHYSICAL EXERCISE 377

the 16-week physical exercise, the SDS scores of these students participating in various sports clubs were statistically significant compared with those before experiment, with a value of P<0.001. It has significant effects on improving the depressive symptoms of college students to involve in any sports association such as basketball clubs, badminton clubs, yoga clubs, aerobics clubs or rugby clubs.

CHANGES OF PSYCHOLOGICAL EMOTIONAL BEHAVIOURS OF MALE AND FEMALE COLLEGE STUDENTS

Figures 3 and 4 show the changes of emotional behaviours of male and female college students in the process of physical exercise, which can directly reflect the positive correlation between physical exercise and mental health of college students.

The value of emotional behaviour over 0 means the positive psychology; the value below 0 indicates the negative emotion. There were no significant changes in the psychological mood of the control group, while there were significance differences in the emotional behaviour curve of the experimental group before and after the experiment. Before the experiment, 32 depressive male students' emotional behaviour was negative and the initiative was low. After 16 weeks of physical exercise, male students had obvious improvement in depressive symptoms such as affective symptoms, physical disorders, psychomotor disorders, psychological disorders, and behavioural disorders; their negative, low, anxious mood, and inferiority complex emotions changed gradually toward optimistic states; their behaviours of anti-socialization, retreat, etc. changed, and they gradually participated in collective life, and began to rely on sports and have a habitual healthy sports.

According to Figure 3, the value of emotional behaviour over 0 means the positive psychology; the value below 0 indicates the negative emotion. There were no significant changes in the psychological mood of the control group, while there were significant differences in the variation trend of emotional behaviour of the female college students in the experimental group before and after the experiment. Exercise has a therapeutic function on female college students with depressive tendency. Before the experiment, female students were unstable in the emotional behaviour and had negative

emotions; they also rejected social communication, especially with the opposite sex. After 16 weeks of physical exercise, 31 college students gradually changed from the original inferiority, anxiety and fear to an optimistic and positive state; their behaviours changed from the retreat, refusal to socialize to the willingness to make friends through sports.

Figure 3

.

The changing trend of emotion and

behaviours of male college students with

depressive tendency before and after

physical exercise

Figure 4

.

The changing trend of emotion and

behaviours of female college students with

depressive tendency before and after

physical exercise

CONCLUSIONS

Depression is a mental illness. The patients with depression have emotional and behavioural

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reactions such as negative emotions, intellectual depression, inferiority complex, fear of socializing, radical tendency, neurasthenia, and isolation. Through good treatment, their symptoms can be improved and eliminated. In this study, the depression symptoms of 63 depressive college students have been improved under different physical exercise interventions, indicating that physical exercise has obvious therapeutic effects on the physical and mental characteristics of patients with depression. The conclusions and recommendations have been made as follows:

(1) Physical exercise and mental health show obvious correlation. Through the periodic and directional sports, the individual's psychological quality can be enhanced. For college students with depression, participation in one or several sports has a positive effect on alleviating their sensitive interpersonal relationships and depressed emotions;

(2) Physical exercise can improve the depression symptoms of the patients, but there were certain differences between male college students and female college students. The changes of various symptom indicators are related to specific physical activity and the

individual’s gender. Thus, during the use of physical exercise for treatment, the design should be made according to the actual situation in order to achieve the best therapeutic effect;

(3) With the fierce social competition, the contemporary college students have been under the higher study and life pressure. If their pressures are not well released, it is easy to cause depression and other mental illness problems. Therefore, colleges and universities should take advantage of the superior natural and humanistic environment to establish some physical education courses with psychotherapy function for college students and enrich their curriculum.

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