Relationship among Psychological Distress, Physical Education and Exercise Habits in Medical College Students: A pilot analysis by mediation model

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Objective: Few studies have studied relationships among psychological distress, physical education and exercise habits. This study was to consider whether exercise habits mediated relationship between psychological distress and physical education in medical college students. Method: The subjects were 532 volunteer students in 2015. Data for 486 out of 532 were adopted for the study (284 men, 202 women, 22.6 ± 6.3 years). We used the unpaired t-test, χ2 test, simple correlation analysis and mediation analysis following the approach outlined by Structural Equation Modeling to clarify relationships among psychological distress, physical education and exercise habits. Results: Using Structural Equation Modeling, relationship was seen between physical education and exercise habits (β: standardization coefficient = 0.120, p = 0.010). A meaningful negative correlation was seen between exercise habits and the psychological distress (β = -0.113, p = 0.014), between physical education and psychological distress (β = -0.133, p = 0.004). By injection of the parameter of exercise habits, the coefficient of correlation between physical education and the psychological distress varied from -0.133 (p = 0.004) to -0.119 (p = 0.009). After carrying out bootstrap approval (10000 times of re-sample number of times), 0 was not included in the 99% confidence interval (-4.460, -0.005). Conclusion: Exercise habits as a mediation factor may be related to improvement of psychological distress by participation in physical education.