THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MODERATE EXERCISE AND DEPRESSION AMONG ADULTS AGED 45 YEARS AND ABOVE

Abstract

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MODERATE EXERCISE AND DEPRESSION AMONG ADULTS AGED 45 YEARS AND ABOVE

By

Garvita Thareja

A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfilment of Requirement of

MS in Health and Human Performance (Health concentration)

Middle Tennessee State University

Murfreesboro, TN

ABSTRACT

Depression affects 9.5% of the US population annually (National Alliance of Mental Illness [NAMI], 2014). Most of the adults above 45 years of age experience some kind of chronic illness and 50% of adults with chronic illness also suffer from mental illness (Center for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2008). This study seeks to better understand phenomena by examining the effect of moderate exercise on depression among adult aged 45 years and above while controlling for age, gender, race, baseline depression score, education, marital status and social support. Moderate exercise has positive effects on various physiological systems of the body (CDC, 2000).

This study incorporates perceived susceptibility and perceived severity constructs from Health belief model (Rosenstock & Hochbaum 1972). Individuals who have mental illness as perceived threat are more likely to perform the advised behavior change than those who do not have mental illness as perceived threat.

Results indicate that moderate exercise at baseline and 12 months is not a significant predictor of depression at 12 months. Thus individuals who performed moderate exercise do not have lower depression scores than those who did not perform moderate exercise for 12 months. Additionally, access to social support was found to be beneficial for depression. Overall more research needs to be done to strengthen findings of this study. This future research would also help in developing and evaluating more effective interventions for exercise and social support that can help in reducing depression and its effects among adults aged 45 years and above or may be in other populations as well.