Managing stress and anxiety through qigong exercise in healthy adults: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials

BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine

Research Article

Chong-Wen Wang¹  Jessie SM Chan¹  Rainbow TH Ho²  Cecilia LW Chan²  Celia HY Chan³  Siu-Man Ng³ 

[1] Centre on Behavioral Health, The University of Hong Kong, 5 Sassoon Road, Pokfulam, Hong Kong, China;Centre on Behavioral Health, The University of Hong Kong, 5 Sassoon Road, Pokfulam, Hong Kong, China;Department of Social Work and Social Administration, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong, China;Department of Social Work and Social Administration, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong, China;

关键词: stress;    anxiety;    qigong;    systematic review;    meta-analysis;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1472-6882-14-8

 received in 2013-09-16, accepted in 2014-01-06,  发布年份 2014

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundAn increasing number of studies have documented the effectiveness of qigong exercise in helping people reduce psychological stress and anxiety, but there is a scarcity of systematic reviews evaluating evidence from randomized controlled trials (RCTs) conducted among healthy subjects.MethodsThirteen databases were searched for RCTs from their inception through June 2013. Effects of qigong exercise were pooled across trials. Standardized mean differences (SMDs) were calculated for the pooled effects. Heterogeneity was assessed using the I2 test. The risk of bias was assessed using the Cochrane criteria.ResultsSeven RCTs met the inclusion criteria. Two RCTs suggested that qigong exercise immediately relieved anxiety among healthy adults, compared to lecture attendance and structured movements only. Four RCTs suggested qigong exercise relieved anxiety (pooled SMD = -0.75; 95% CI, -1.11 to -0.40), and three RCTs suggested that qigong exercise reduced stress (pooled SMD = -0.88; 95% CI, -1.22 to -0.55) among healthy subjects following one to three months of qigong practice, compared to wait-list controls.ConclusionsThe available evidence suggests that qigong exercise reduces stress and anxiety in healthy adults. However, given the limited number of RCTs and their methodological flaws, further rigorously designed RCTs are needed.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Wang et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2014. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.