Breathing and Relaxation Exercises Help Improving Fear of COVID-19, Anxiety, and Sleep Quality: A Randomized Controlled Trial.

To investigate the effects of breathing and relaxation exercises performed via telerehabilitation on fear, anxiety, sleep quality, and quality of life of individuals without coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) during the ongoing pandemic. A prospective, randomized, controlled single-blind study. Fifty participants who had not been exposed to the COVID-19 virus earlier were randomly divided into experimental ( = 25) and control groups ( = 25). Both groups received an information session about COVID-19 once at the start of the study via a mobile phone video application. The experimental group also performed a breathing and relaxation exercise program twice daily (morning and evening), 7 days per week, for 4 weeks; one session of the program was conducted under the remote supervision of a physiotherapist as telerehabilitation, and the remaining sessions were performed as a home program. The Fear of COVID-19 Scale (FCV-19S), which was the primary outcome measure, The Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale (HAMA), Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), and EQ-5D-3L were administered to both groups. The FCV-19S, HAMA, and PSQI were statistically significantly improved to compare the controls, with a large effect size (η = 0.135, 0.313, and 0.200, respectively). The EQ-5D-3L index and EQ-5D-3L visual analog scale were not statistically significantly different compared with the controls; however, a small effect size was detected for the differences between the two groups (η = 0.056 and 0.013, respectively). Breathing and relaxation exercises appear to be an effective and feasible approach to support mental health and sleep quality during the COVID-19 pandemic. Especially in highly contagious diseases such as COVID-19, telerehabilitation approaches may be useful for safely reaching individuals by eliminating human-to-human contact. NCT04910932.