Objective: To examine the efficacy of a single progressive muscle relaxation session compared with a control condition on state anxiety, psychological stress, fatigue and subjective well-being in patients with schizophrenia.

Design: Randomized controlled trial.

Setting: An acute inpatient care unit of an University Psychiatric Centre.

Subjects: Sixty-four out of 88 eligible patients with schizophrenia.

Interventions: Patients were randomly assigned to either a single progressive muscle relaxation session during 25 minutes or a resting control condition with the opportunity to read for an equal amount of time.

Main Outcome Measures: Before and after the single interventions the State anxiety inventory and the Subjective exercise experiences scale were completed. Effect sizes were calculated.

Results: Only within progressive muscle relaxation, participants (n=27) showed decreased state anxiety, psychological stress and fatigue and increased subjective well-being. Between-group differences in post scores were found for state anxiety, subjective well-being and psychological stress, but not for fatigue. The effect size favouring progressive muscle relaxation was 1.26 for subjective well-being and -1.25 and -1.02 for respectively state anxiety and psychological stress.

Conclusions: Progressive muscle relaxation is highly effective in reducing acute feelings of stress and anxiety in patients with schizophrenia. A reduction in stress and state anxiety is associated with an increase in subjective well-being.

Download full-text PDF

Source
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0269215510395633DOI Listing

Publication Analysis

Top Keywords

state anxiety
28
progressive muscle
24
muscle relaxation
24
subjective well-being
24
anxiety psychological
12
psychological stress
12
stress fatigue
12
anxiety
8
anxiety subjective
8
randomized controlled
8

Similar Publications

Want AI Summaries of new PubMed Abstracts delivered to your In-box?

Enter search terms and have AI summaries delivered each week - change queries or unsubscribe any time!