Moderate-to-vigorous physical activity and risk of all-cause mortality in people with anxiety disorders in South Korea

ABSTRACT

We investigated whether light and moderate-to-vigorous physical activity is associated with all-cause mortality in individuals with anxiety disorders. We used data obtained from South Korea’s National Health Insurance Service to examine healthcare usage and health examination. Cases were extracted using the International Classification of Diseases, 10th edition. We analysed 38,075 individuals diagnosed with anxiety disorders within three years before our study and who had physical activity data during 2009–2010. We employed Cox proportional hazard regression to examine the role of physical activity on all-cause mortality in Koreans with anxiety disorders. The analysis was adjusted for age, gender, type of insurance, socioeconomic status, alcohol use, and smoking status. Light physical activity was not associated with all-cause mortality. However, moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (at least 30 min/week for moderate physical activity or 20 min/week for vigorous physical activity) was associated with reduced risk of all-cause mortality compared with no physical activity. The study’s limitations include using potentially unreliable self-reports to measure physical activity. Additionally, the study period was relatively short. Nevertheless, moderate-to-vigorous physical activity may attenuate all-cause mortality for individuals with anxiety disorders, even if their activity levels are below those recommended by health organisations.

KEYWORDS:

• Anxiety
• anxiety disorders
• health services
• exercise

Data availability statement

Restrictions apply to the availability of these data. Data were obtained from the NHIS and are available from https://nhiss.nhis.or.kr with the permission of the NHIS.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Kyung Hee University [grant number KHU-20191226] and the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF; 2019R1I1A1A01041023). The funders had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript, or in the decision to publish the results.