Associations of self-reported physical activity and anxiety symptoms and status among 7,874 Irish adults across harmonised datasets: a DEDIPAC-study

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2020-03
Authors
Mc Dowell, Cillian P.
Carlin, Angela
Capranica, Laura
Dillon, Christina
Harrington, Janas M.
Lakerveld, Jeroen
Loyen, Anne
Ling, Fiona Chun Man
Brug, Johannes
MacDonncha, Ciaran
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BioMed Central Ltd.
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10.1186/s12889-020-08481-3
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Abstract
Background: Anxiety is an adaptive response to an objective or perceived threat; however, when symptoms become severe and chronic it that can become a maladaptive anxiety disorder. Limited evidence suggests that physical activity may be associated with prevention against anxiety. This study uses data from The Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA) and The Mitchelstown Cohort Study to investigate cross-sectional associations between physical activity and anxiety symptoms and status among Irish adults. Methods: Both datasets were harmonized (n =7874). The short form International Physical Activity Questionnaire measured physical activity. Participants were classified as meeting World Health Organization physical activity guidelines ((≥150 min weekly of moderate intensity physical activity, ≥75 min weekly of vigorous intensity physical activity, or ≥ 600 MET-minutes) or not. They were also divided into three groups based on weekly MET-minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (Low: 0-599; Moderate: 600-1199; High: =1200), and three groups based on weekly minutes of walking (Low: 0-209; Moderate: 210-419; High: 420+). Anxiety symptoms were measured by the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale with a score of =8 indicating anxiety. Binomial logistic regression, adjusted for relevant confounders examined physical activity-anxiety associations. Results: : Females had higher rates of anxiety than males (28.0% vs 20.0%; p < 0.001). Following adjustment for relevant covariates, meeting physical activity guidelines was associated with 13.5% (95% CI: 2.0–23.7; p = 0.023) lower odds of anxiety. Moderate and High physical activity were associated with 13.5% (− 11.0–32.6; p = 0.254) and 13.6% (1.4–4.2; p = 0.030) lower odds of anxiety compared to Low physical activity, respectively. Moderate and High walking were associated with 2.1% (− 14.5–16.3; p = 0.789) and 5.1% (− 9.3–17.6; p = 0.467) lower odds of anxiety compared to Low walking, respectively.
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Cross-sectional , Elderly Ireland , Mental health , Physical activity
Citation
Mc Dowell, C. P., Carlin, A., Capranica, L., Dillon, C., Harrington, J. M., Lakerveld, J., Loyen, A., Ling, F. C. M., Brug, J., MacDonncha, C. and Herring, M. P. (2020) 'Associations of self-reported physical activity and anxiety symptoms and status among 7,874 Irish adults across harmonised datasets: a DEDIPAC-study', BMC Public Health, 20, 365 (11pp). doi: 10.1186/s12889-020-08481-3
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https://hdl.handle.net/10468/13915
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Public Health - Journal Articles
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© The Author(s). 2020 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.