This presentation is aimed at evaluating evidence for translation into nursing practice in relation to the
effect of physical activities on mental health patients. The goal is to be able to validate systematically
reviewed evidence on the positive effect of physical activities on mental health patients for translation
into practice. This supports evidence-based practice.
Insufficient levels of physical activity are thought to be responsible for around 3.2 million deaths per
year which calls for a focus on physical activity as intervention therapy particularly among mental health
patients who tend to be restricted from physical activities as a result of their mental health conditions.
Moreover, physical activity is perceived to be an intervention with potential to reduce the burden of
depression and cognitive impairment.
At my placement, I care for patients with mental health conditions such as schizophrenia and bipolar
and am interested in the implementation of a valid evidence of positive impact of physical activity in
their mental conditions based on appropriate evaluation.
Population is Patient with mental health
Intervention is Physical activities
No Comparism and
Output is Mental health improvement
Clinical Question is therefore, Does physical activities have positive impacts on patients with mental
health condition?
A single database- Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (CSRs) was used for the literature searches
using the multi-field search to search different keywords and truncation separated with “OR” within
fields and combined with an “AND” between groups following the PICO principles with
Population being People with mental health condition
Intervention being physical activity or activities using truncation * or exercise or fitness or physical
exercise
Diagnosis/health condition being mental health or psychological disorder
Search was limited to full systematic reviews which returned: 437 text results.
Search was filter to the past 5 years from 2016 to 2020 and publication type was set to systematic
reviews and that returned: 323 and to further narrow the search, most recent articles published in 2020
were filtered which returned 13 text results. The 13 articles were then quality appraised to select the
one that best answer the PICO question
Methods used to find the evidence were based on Inclusion and exclusion criteria
Inclusion Criteria:
Target population were patients of any age and gender. Articles were added if they focused on people
who are engaged in one form of physical activity to improving both physical and mental health. Only
CSRs assessing exercise or physical activity as a stand-alone intervention were included. I only included
studies published in English.
Exclusion Criteria:
Studies that consider complex interventions e.g., assessing both exercise/physical activity and
behavioural changes were excluded if the health effects of the interventions could not have been
attributed to physical activity distinctly. Also protocols and studies older than 2016 were excluded.
and
The article with title Exercise/physical activity and health outcome: an overview of Cochrane systematic
reviews by Posadzki et al., (2020) was selected.
The CASP Systematic Review Checklist was utilise for the quality appraisal of the SR because it can be
used to appraise the SR in relation to effectiveness of physical activities on patients with mental health
condition for trustworthiness, relevance and results validity. The appraisal shows that the results of the
SR are valid, clear, and will help locally with majority of the questions being Yes. The Epistemology for
this paper is objective knowledge about the effectiveness of the use of physical activity intervention.
The Ontology is realism indicating the researcher is accepting the situation as it is rather than giving it a
relative interpretation. The Paradigm is positivism, which also indicates there is only one reality about
the effectiveness of the intervention as evidenced by the linearity in which physical activity are delivered
as a stand-alone intervention. The Methodology is quantitative as the researchers employed the use of
statistics and numerical data from the primary researches
Summary of the findings was based on subgroup analyses of the evidence from SR by the type of
condition showed that of the health conditions considered, mental health patients were those that
physical activity had the highest positive effect on. This answers the clinical question that physical
activities have positive impacts on patients with mental health condition.