The impact of exercise projects to promote mental wellbeing

Abstract

Background

There is a well-established link between physical activity and psychological wellbeing, but less evidence on whether it can increase comfort in disclosure of mental health problems and help to reduce the perceived stigma of mental illness.

Aims

To investigate whether exercise projects, funded by the time to change anti-stigma programme to reduce mental health-related stigma and discrimination in England, can improve (1) wellbeing, (2) participation in physical activity, (3) readiness to disclose mental health problems or (4) perceived reduction in levels of stigma and discrimination.

Methods

Participants of exercise projects run in routine community settings by local Mind and Rethink Mental Illness associations completed the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale (WEMWBS) and questions addressing the other three outcomes at baseline and three month follow-up (N = 2663 baseline; N = 531 three month follow-up).

Results

There was significant improvement at three months on the WEMWBS (t(386) = −7.64, p = <0.001, r = 0.36); readiness to disclose (χ²(1) = 10.86, p = 0.001) and participation in physical activity outside of the project (χ²(1) = 12.01, p = 0.001).

Conclusions

Community-based exercise projects have the potential to produce multifaceted positive outcomes for people with mental health problems; however, more methodologically robust studies are needed to adequately determine the effects of exercise.

Keywords:

• exercise
• wellbeing
• stigma
• discrimination
• social exclusion

Acknowledgements

We thank Sue Baker, Maggie Gibbons and Paul Farmer, Mind; Paul Corry and Mark Davies, Rethink Mental Illness, for their collaboration.

Declaration of Interest: GT has received grants for stigma-related research in the past five years from Lundbeck, UK, and from the National Institute for Health Research, and has acted as a consultant to the UK Office of the Chief Scientist. The other authors report no conflict of interest in the preparation of this manuscript.

Funding: The study was funded by the Big Lottery Fund and Comic Relief through their funding of the Time to Change programme. GT and CH are funded in relation to a National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Applied Programme grant awarded to the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust (GT). GT is also supported in relation to the NIHR Specialist Mental Health Biomedical Research Centre at the Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London and the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust (GT). CH is also funded by a grant from Guy's and St Thomas Charity. All opinions expressed here are solely those of the authors.