Depression and Exercise in Older Adults: Exercise Looks after You Program, User Profile

Abstract

Introduction: Depression is a challenge for public health policies, as it is the number one leading cause of disability in the world. In order to combat and prevent it, different social and health interventions are being developed to promote health through physical activity. Objective: Analyze and describe the user profile of the patients with depression from the Exercise Looks After You program, which is a physical activity program that works on improving public health and has an essential role preventing chronic diseases and improving the quality of life of the elderly in Extremadura. Design: Cross-sectional study. Participants: total sample of 1972 users (96.4% women, 3.6% men), of whom 724 (94.6% women, 5.4% men) suffer from depression. Results: It was observed that the dominant user profile of the patients with depression within the program is female, 71 years old, physically active, overweight, married, with low educational level, non-smoker, no alcohol consumption and below average physical fitness and health-related quality of life, which translates into a high incidence of primary care, nursing and prescription visits. Conclusions: This study presents the user profile of depressive versus non-depressive participants of the Exercise Looks After You physical activity program. This data could be meaningful in order to improve and optimize public health programs and resources.