Staying Active, Minding Health: Does Exercise Influence Depression and Anxiety in Herat University's Education Students?

Abstract

Mental health issues are a major concern for public health worldwide, affecting a large segment of the global population. This study aims to investigate the association between physical activity, depression, and anxiety among students in the Faculty of Education at Herat University. A cross-sectional study was conducted during the fourth quarter of 2023 (October-December) encompassing a 204 sample of male students enrolled in the Faculty of Education at Herat University. We used a 13-item self-administered questionnaire to collect information on the participants’ sociodemographic details and physical activities. We assessed depression and anxiety using the standardized Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) and the Generalized Anxiety Disorder 7-item (GAD-7) questionnaire, respectively. The data was scored and categorized according to the guidelines set for each instrument. Statistical analyses were performed in IBM SPSS Statistics (version 27). Of all participants in this study, 86.3% suffered from various degrees of depression and 71.6% suffered from various degrees of anxiety. A lack of a regular and organized weekly plan involving sports activities was associated with depression (p=0.009) and anxiety (p=0.024). Lack of regular weekly exercise in the past due to physical problems was associated only with anxiety (p=0.023). This study explored how physical activity relates to depression and anxiety in students at Herat University's Faculty of Education. We found that being physically active was linked to both lower depression and anxiety levels. The higher rates of depression and anxiety in our study might be due to social and environmental factors that the other studies didn't account for.