A meta-meta-analysis of the effect of physical activity on depression and anxiety in non-clinical adult populations

By Amanda L. Rebar, R. Stanton, D. Geard, C. Short, Mitch J. Duncan, Corneel Vandelanotte. Health Psychology Review, 2015

1,100 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Amidst strong efforts to promote the therapeutic benefits of physical activity for reducing depression and anxiety in clinical populations, little focus has been directed towards the mental health benefits of activity for non-clinical populations. The objective of this meta-meta-analysis was to systematically aggregate and quantify high-quality meta-analytic findings of the effects of physical activity on depression and anxiety for non-clinical populations. A systematic search identified eight meta-analytic outcomes of randomised trials that investigated the effects of physical activity on depression or anxiety. The subsequent meta-meta-analyses were based on a total of 92 studies with 4310 participants for the effect of physical activity on depression and 306 study effects with 10,755 participants for the effect of physical activity on anxiety. Physical activity reduced depression by a medium effect [standardised mean difference (SMD) = −0.50; 95% CI: −0.93 to −0.06] and anxiety by a small effect (SMD = −0.38; 95% CI: −0.66 to −0.11). Neither effect showed significant heterogeneity across meta-analyses. These findings represent a comprehensive body of high-quality evidence that physical activity reduces depression and anxiety in non-clinical populations.

Subfields: Applied Psychology, Clinical Psychology, Physiology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/be3f9fe735f1614171b5927b70610bf2715d6c31

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Citations in the corpus

Physical activity: Health impact, prevalence, correlates and interventions (2017, background): “For instance, Rebar et al. (2015) in a recent meta-meta-analyses of 92 studies showed that PA reduced depression by a standardised mean difference of −.50 and anxiety by −.38.”
Theories of physical activity behaviour change: A history and synthesis of approaches (2019, background): “Evidence continues to accumulate on the health benefits of regular physical activity (Lee et al., 2012; Rebar et al., 2015; Rhodes, Bredin, Janssen, Warburton, & Bauman, 2017; Warburton & Bredin, 2016).”
Correlates of Perceived Physical Activity Transitions during the COVID‐19 Pandemic among Canadian Adults (2020, background): “Regular MVPA is effective to support mental and physical health across the lifespan (Rebar et al., 2015; Rhodes et al., 2017; Warburton & Bredin, 2017), so a focus on physical activity promotion during and after the COVID pandemic is important, especially when initial reports show a considerable…”
Depression, Anxiety and Stress during COVID-19: Associations with Changes in Physical Activity, Sleep, Tobacco and Alcohol Use in Australian Adults (2020, background): “For example, Rebar and colleagues reported significant inverse associations between physical activity participation and depression and anxiety levels in their meta-analysis [27].”