MedWire News: Patients with schizophrenia have reduced physical activity levels and functional exercise capacity compared with mentally health individuals, study results show.
"Walking, a common activity of daily living, is a convenient functional exercise mode to improve both mental and physical functioning in people with schizophrenia," write Davy Vancampfort (Catholic University Leuven, Belgium) and team in the journal Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica.
The researchers explain: "In the general population, walking ability is known to be directly impaired through excess weight and associated musculoskeletal complications. To our knowledge, comparable data for patients with schizophrenia are not available."
Furthermore, they add that "little is known about other variables that may interfere with functional exercise capacity in schizophrenia."
To investigate functional exercise capacity in patients with schizophrenia, as well as factors that influence such capacity, the researchers enrolled 25 normal weight, 25 overweight, and 10 obese patients with the mental health condition and 40 mentally healthy controls who were matched for age and gender.
The participants' level of physical activity was assessed using the Baecke questionnaire, and their functional exercise capacity was assessed using a 6-minute walk test. They also completed the Physical Self-Perception Profile (PSPP).
Overall, obese schizophrenia patients walked a significantly shorter distance on the 6-minute walk test than overweight and normal weight patients, at 450.6 m versus 580.2 and 615.8 m, respectively. And normal weight schizophrenia patients walked a significantly shorter distance than controls (710.6 m).
Dyspnea was present only in schizophrenia patients, at 28%, and was particularly common in obese patients, at 90% versus 40% in overweight and 27.3% in normal weight patients.
Schizophrenia patients scored lower on all four PSPP sub-domains of sport competence/condition (24.4 vs 31.8), body attractiveness (12.2 vs 15.8), physical strength (13.0 vs 14.9), and physical self-worth (12.5 vs 16.2).
In multiple regression analysis, body mass index, perceived sports competence/condition, physical self-worth, level of sports participation, and smoking behavior explained 59% of the variance in walking distance.
Vancampfort and team conclude: "The present study clearly demonstrates that patients with schizophrenia experience physical limitations when performing daily activities such as walking.
"Not only obesity, associated medical conditions and physical complaints and smoking behavior interfere with walking, but also physical activity and physical self-perception variables contribute to the distance achieved in a walk test."
They add: "Health care professionals should take into account these barriers when designing adapted walking programs for these patients."
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