Evaluation of Research
The Australian Bureau of Statistics determined in its report of mental illness that in the year 2015, more than 4 million people reported their mental illness relayed to stress and depression (Schuch et al., 2017). Within these, 45% people reported their depression condition was associated with their health wellbeing, and other personal issues. As per the mental health policies and strategies total $9 billion was spent on the mental health related policies and interventions in the year 2015-2016. Therefore, this research was chosen to obtain the effectiveness of the interventions such as physical activities compared to medications within 2 months of application (Olander et al., 2013). This comparison between usual intervention chosen for depression and physical activities will help in the identification of effectiveness of intervention which is important in patient’s well-beings.
There are wide variety of research articles present about the chosen topic that helps to determine the effectiveness of the intervention and making it applicable in women of various age. In this section, the research by Pereira et al. (2013) will be discussed which aimed to investigate the effect of physical activity programs including muscle strength and aerobic exercises in maintaining neurological health and decrease in depression syndrome in 451 elderly women. The research process utilized for this study was randomized control trail and the healthcare facility where it was applied was located in Brazil. The research intervention was provided to the patients divided in two groups and one control section separately and hence, they were anonymous about their groups, intervention or the research setting. Therefore, the research was able to satisfy ethical considerations. Finally, the finding indicated towards the fact that patients who were assigned to medication and other interventions showed minimal amount of recovery however, in patients with physical activity related to muscle strength or aerobic exercises, they showed higher growth in their neurological health and depression condition decreased considerably. Further, it also indicated towards the fact that physical activity is an important aspect which is able to release adrenaline which helps to improve patient’s mood and make them stress free so that they can lead their life without any discrimination and tension. This research topic hence, was appropriate for the depression related intervention (Kiecolt-Glaser et al., 2014).
This literature review section comprises of three research articles collected from databases and which include research evidences in favor or against the evidences chosen for the research question. As these research papers are primary research articles, it increases the chance of the research to extract research answers, as well as increases the reliability and authenticity of this assignment research. The three primary research articles which have been included for discussion are randomized control trial, observation or questionnaire-based study with pregnant women and the research evidence-based data collection study that helped to identify effectiveness of the intervention in mid aged women (Ussher, Taylor & Faulkner, 20130.
Literature Review
The first article which will be discussed in this section is the randomized control trial conducted by Pereira et al. (2013) for the identification of two different physical activity routines compared to typical medication intervention in making women with depression syndrome free from their depression and improving their health condition. The physical activity, which was chosen for the research was aerobic activities and muscle strength activities which is associated with increasing mental strength, increasing the adrenaline rush and making people free from stress condition (Cooney, Dwan & Mead, 2013). The women included in the study were 65 to 89 year old and those 651 women were divided into two groups, one research study and another control group to determine the effectiveness of the chosen interventions (Pereira et al., 2013) These interventions were applied to two groups up to 10 weeks, 30 sessions and three times per week so that it could be implemented in the daily routine of the patients. These 1 hour sessions were conducted under the supervision of physical therapists and the measurement of better mental health was determined using plasma level, depression symptoms assessed using Geriatric Depression Scale (Pereira et al., 2013). Finally, it was found that people receiving these interventions were able to get depression symptoms decreased due to their increased adrenaline rush and physical activity.
The second research article directly compares the medication intervention with that of physical activity in decreasing gestational depression in pregnant women (McEachan et al., 2015). This was a cohort study in which researchers first observed the pattern of depression in pregnant women ad then tried to find out the connection between green space and depression in the deprived pregnant women and then implemented physical activity in them compared to their medication intervention to determine the effectiveness of the disorder. The researchers conducted the study with 7547 women who were recruited to the Born in Bradford and then their depression symptoms were calculated using binary measure of depression (McEachan et al., 2015). After the intervention, it was found that women who were living in greener space, with physical activity and proper diet and medication was able to reduce their gestational depression compared to the other group who were deprived to this condition. Hence, it was determined that physical activity plays an important role in maintaining gestational health and wellbeing.
The third intervention was about the sitting time, less activity, physical activity and depression condition in women who are at their middle age and then helped them to understand the effectiveness of the intervention (Van Uffelen et al., 2013). In this research the aim was to be assessing the effectiveness of physical activity compared to sitting and consuming medication to prevent the depression condition in women of Australia. For this purpose, 8950 women were selected from age 50 to 55 and they were asked to follow the pattern of physical activity and sedentary lifestyle (Van Uffelen et al., 2013). After collecting data from the intervention, it was statistically analyzed and it was found that women who opted for physical activity as the intervention was able to reduce their mental condition and depression completely whereas, women with sedentary lifestyle increased their depression to the level that affected their health and wellbeing within the healthcare facility (Josefsson, Lindwall & Archer, 2014).
Future Research Recommendations
Hence, analyzing these three aspects these could be easily detected that physical activity has been proved to be an intervention using which depression condition could be easily decreased in patients. Therefore, these three articles were able to provide answers to research question chosen for this assessment (Poston et al., 2013).
This section of the assignment discusses about the future research aspect of the chosen research articles, and research question. As the intervention was applicable on a major portion of the selected society, its reach is enough to provide positive result in a bigger community and hence, research is mandatory to scrutinize the negative aspects properly (Zschucke, Gaudlitz & Ströhle, 2013). Further all the researches mentioned that they applied intervention however, they did not mention the type of exercise and activity they included except the research of Pereira et al. (2013). Hence, future research could be conducted on deciding the exercises which will enhance the ability of the people in improving their condition. Further, the intensity of the activity is an important aspect as maximum intensity can affect the physical health of the women as they have several other health conditions other than depression (Mamm & Faulkner, 2013). Hence, it could be determine using future research on the topic. Therefore, these future aspect should be able to find out the these answers so that maximum improvement could be imposed on people using these interventions affected with depression (Rosenbaum, Tiedemann & Ward, 2014).
References
Cooney, G., Dwan, K., & Mead, G. (2014). Exercise for depression. Jama, 311(23), 2432-2433.Journal of Clinical Oncology, 32(10), 1040.
Josefsson, T., Lindwall, M., & Archer, T. (2014). Physical exercise intervention in depressive disorders: Meta?analysis and systematic review. Scandinavian journal of medicine & science in sports, 24(2), 259-272.
Kiecolt-Glaser, J. K., Bennett, J. M., Andridge, R., Peng, J., Shapiro, C. L., Malarkey, W. B., … & Glaser, R. (2014). Yoga’s impact on inflammation, mood, and fatigue in breast cancer survivors: a randomized controlled trial.
Mammen, G., & Faulkner, G. (2013). Physical activity and the prevention of depression: a systematic review of prospective studies. American journal of preventive medicine, 45(5), 649-657.
McEachan, R. R. C., Prady, S. L., Smith, G., Fairley, L., Cabieses, B., Gidlow, C., … & Nieuwenhuijsen, M. J. (2015). The association between green space and depressive symptoms in pregnant women: moderating roles of socioeconomic status and physical activity. J Epidemiol Community Health, jech-2015.
Olander, E. K., Fletcher, H., Williams, S., Atkinson, L., Turner, A., & French, D. P. (2013). What are the most effective techniques in changing obese individuals’ physical activity self-efficacy and behaviour: a systematic review and meta-analysis. International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, 10(1), 29.
Pereira, D. S., de Queiroz, B. Z., Miranda, A. S., Rocha, N. P., Felício, D. C., Mateo, E. C., … & Teixeira, A. L. (2013). Effects of physical exercise on plasma levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor and depressive symptoms in elderly women—a randomized clinical trial. Archives of physical medicine and rehabilitation, 94(8), 1443-1450.
Poston, L., Briley, A. L., Barr, S., Bell, R., Croker, H., Coxon, K., … & Khazaezadeh, N. (2013). Developing a complex intervention for diet and activity behaviour change in obese pregnant women (the UPBEAT trial); assessment of behavioural change and process evaluation in a pilot randomised controlled trial. BMC pregnancy and childbirth, 13(1), 148.
Rosenbaum, S., Tiedemann, A., & Ward, P. B. (2014). Meta-analysis physical activity interventions for people with mental illness: a systematic review and meta-analysis. J Clin Psychiatry, 75(0), 1-11.
Schuch, F., Vancampfort, D., Firth, J., Rosenbaum, S., Ward, P., Reichert, T., … & Stubbs, B. (2017). Physical activity and sedentary behavior in people with major depressive disorder: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of affective disorders, 210, 139-150.
Ussher, M. H., Taylor, A., & Faulkner, G. (2017). Exercise interventions for smoking cessation. Cancer.
Van Uffelen, J. G., van Gellecum, Y. R., Burton, N. W., Peeters, G., Heesch, K. C., & Brown, W. J. (2013). Sitting-time, physical activity, and depressive symptoms in mid-aged women. American journal of preventive medicine, 45(3), 276-281.
Zschucke, E., Gaudlitz, K., & Ströhle, A. (2013). Exercise and physical activity in mental disorders: clinical and experimental evidence. Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health, 46(Suppl 1), S12