Evaluation of Depression and its Relationship to Exercise in Women Over 20 Years

Depression is one of the most common mental disorders, which imposes a large burden on the health care system. Due to increasing frequency of depression, present research was performed to evaluate the frequency of depression and its relationship to exercise in women in Yazd. This was a descriptive study. In this study, 200 women over 20 years old entered the study. One hundred subjects were athletes and100 were non-athletes. They were selected by stratified random sampling. Beck Depression Inventory was used to determine the frequency of depression in women. T-test was used for data analysis. Results showed that the frequency of depression was different between athletic and non-athletic women. Mean depression scores for athletic women were lower than non-athletes. There was a significant difference regarding the frequency of depression between women in individual and team sports. Athletic women with higher duration of exercising showed less depression than other athletes. It can be concluded from the study that exercise in everyday life can be effective in reducing the frequency of depression in women.