Physical Exercise and Depressive Symptoms in Moderately or Severely Depressed Adults

Do Moderately and Severely Depressed Individuals Derive the Same Psychological Benefits From a 10-weeks Long Aerobic Exercise Program ?

This study is a comparative trial comparing the time course of depressive symptoms between moderately and severely depressed participants over a 10-week long exercise program

Sixty depressed French adults (34 with symptoms of moderate intensity and 26 with symptoms of severe intensity as defined by the PHQ-9 cutting scores) voluntarily participated in our comparative trial.

A control group (waiting list) of n = 16 including 8 severely depressed and 8 moderately depressed participants received no physical exercise.

For the remaining 44 participants (26 with moderate-intensity depressive symptoms and 18 with high-intensity depressive symptoms), two weekly Nordic Walking sessions of 1h were performed for 10 consecutive weeks.

Depressive symptoms were assessed using standard self-report questionnaires at various time points: 1/ enrollment (using the PHQ-9), and then (2) just before the beginning of the exercise intervention (pre-intervention; using the BDI-II), 2/ at the end of Week 5 (mid-intervention; using the BDI-II), and 3/ the day following the end of the exercise program (post-intervention)

Inclusion Criteria:

• PHQ-9 (Kroenke et al., 2001) score of 10 or above

Exclusion Criteria:

• medical contraindication to moderate-intensity aerobic exercise
• inability to read French language