Oral / Poster Presentation File
1گروه تربیت بدنی- دانشکده علوم انسانی- دانشگاه ولایت- ایرانشهر- ایران
2Department of Sport Sciences, University of Zabol, Zabol, Iran
Materials and Methods: Articles were searched in Persian in the IranDoc, SID, Noormags, Civilica, Elmnet using the keywords “mental health”, “general health”, “student”, “active”, and “non-active” were used without any time limit until November 2021. Inclusion criteria included cross-sectional studies comparing active and non-active as well as studies performed using the General Health Questionnaire-28 (GHQ-28). The modified checklist by Downs et al. (1998) was used to assess the methodological quality of the selected studies. Articles were reviewed using the PRISMA checklist.
Results: Based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria, finally 5 articles from 250 studies were comprehensively reviewed. According to the results of the study, the total number of athletes and non-athletes was 850 and 628, respectively. The results of meta-analysis showed that there is a significant difference between the mental health of active and non-active [MD = -4.15, 95% CI (-4.96 to -2.34)] as well as there is a significant difference between active and non-active students in the following four subscales of mental health so that in all cases the active students were better; physical symptoms [MD = -2.23, 95% CI (-9.75 to -0.70)], anxiety and sleep disorder [MD = -1.83, 95% CI (-2.31 to -1.04)], social dysfunction [MD = -1.30, 95% CI (-2.45 to -0.64)], and depression [MD = -1.33, 95% CI (-1.00 to -0.65)].
Conclusions: The results of this study showed that active students had better general health than non-active one. Therefore, exercise and physical activity can promote students' mental health.
