Psychological Distress and Physical-Activity Levels among People Consulting a Healthy Life Centre for Lifestyle Change

Cille H Sevild,Sindre M Dyrstad,Lars Edvin Bru

doi:10.5334/paah.55

Abstract

Aims: Healthy Life Centres were developed in Norway to support lifestyle-changes. Aims of the study were: First, to assess physical-activity levels and psychological distress among participants at one centre and compare them to representative samples. Second, to investigate associations of physical activity level and mental distress. Methods: Participants between 18-71 years of age were included (N = 120). Accelerometer-based levels of physical activity (ActiGraph GT3X) and psychological distress (Hopkins Symptom Check List-10) were compared to national, representative samples of healthy Norwegians and overweight/obese nationals. Associations between indicators of physical activity levels and psychological distress were analysed. Results: The participants were predominantly obese (77%) and had symptoms of psychological distress (77%). They engaged in 73% less light physical activity but performed 15% more moderate-vigorous physical activity compared to the representative samples. However, moderate-vigorous physical activity was not adequately sustained in our sample, so significantly fewer participants fulfilled physical-activity level recommendations (16% versus 32%), but not in comparison to the national obese sample (12% versus 19%). The prevalence of psychological distress was seven times higher compared to the national sample, and five times higher than the overweight/obese sample. Associations of physical activity and psychological distress were non-significant. Conclusion: The prevalence of psychological distress was unexpectedly high, and in combination with obesity it indicates a challenging strive when aiming to increase physical activity levels. Therefore, the Healthy Life Centre participants may also benefit from psychological counselling, though more research from HLCs and similar services is needed to conclude on the subject. Publisher's Note: A corrigendum relating to this article has been published at http://doi.org/10.5334/paah.84 .

Highlights

The establishment of Healthy Life Centres (HLCs) in Norway came in response to the need for modifying unhealthy lifestyle behaviours
Salemonsen et al (2018) discovered that HLC participants experienced shame and Sevild et al: Psychological Distress and Physical-Activity Levels among People Consulting a Healthy Life Centre for Lifestyle Change guilt that acted as obstacles to lifestyle changes, which points to the need to address emotional distress before enabling dietary and physical activity (PA) changes
While the participants consulted an HLC to increase their PA level, the high proportion of those struggling with psychological distress was substantially more evident than those struggling with inactivity

Summary

Introduction

The establishment of Healthy Life Centres (HLCs) in Norway came in response to the need for modifying unhealthy lifestyle behaviours. Salemonsen et al (2018) discovered that HLC participants experienced shame and Sevild et al: Psychological Distress and Physical-Activity Levels among People Consulting a Healthy Life Centre for Lifestyle Change guilt that acted as obstacles to lifestyle changes, which points to the need to address emotional distress before enabling dietary and PA changes. These findings are supported by a previous study revealing that psychological distress may add an extra obstacle to participation in PA (Azar et al 2010). In a systematic review of lifestyle interventions in community settings, only two of the included studies addressed mental health in addition to PA and dietary behaviours (Stoutenberg et al 2015)

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion