Cortese Samuele, Solmi Marco, Gosling Corentin J
Developmental EPI (Evidence synthesis, Prediction, Implementation) Lab, Centre for Innovation in Mental Health, School of Psychology, Faculty of Environmental and Life Sciences, University of Southampton, Southampton, United Kingdom; Clinical and Experimental Sciences (CNS and Psychiatry), Faculty of Medicine, University of Southampton, Southampton, United Kingdom; Hampshire and Isle of Wight Healthcare Foundation NHS Trust, Southampton, United Kingdom; Hassenfeld Children's Hospital at NYU Langone, New York University Child Study Center, New York, New York; Department of Precision and Regenerative Medicine and Ionian Area, University of Bari "Aldo Moro", Bari, Italy.
Developmental EPI (Evidence synthesis, Prediction, Implementation) Lab, Centre for Innovation in Mental Health, School of Psychology, Faculty of Environmental and Life Sciences, University of Southampton, Southampton, United Kingdom; Department of Psychiatry, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada; Department of Mental Health, Ottawa Hospital, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada; Ottawa Hospital Research Institute (OHRI) Clinical Epidemiology Program, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada; School of Epidemiology and Public Health, Faculty of Medicine, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada; Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Charité Universitätsmedizin, Berlin, Germany.
J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry. 2025 May 29. doi: 10.1016/j.jaac.2025.05.013.
Few would disagree that appropriate physical exercise is good for the body and the mind. For professionals working specifically in the field of child and adolescent mental health, one important question is: "Could physical exercise be considered a treatment strategy to tackle anxiety and depression in children and adolescents?" Singh and colleagues aimed to rigorously answer this question based on the best available evidence by conducting an umbrella review, that is, a quantitative synthesis of systematic reviews and meta-analyses of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) testing the efficacy of physical activity on anxiety and depression in children and adolescents. After screening more than 6,000 potentially relevant references, the authors statistically pooled data from more than 20 systematic reviews with meta-analyses, including a total of 375 RCTs, encompassing 38,117 participants. The main findings from Singh et al. highlighted a small effect size for anxiety (standardized mean difference [SMD] = 0.39) and depression (SMD = 0.45), with confidence intervals indicating that the true effect may actually range from very small to medium (for anxiety: 95% CI = 0.17-0.61; for depression: 95% CI = 0.31-0.59). Therefore, it would seem that the largest evidence synthesis to date supports physical exercise as an effective intervention for children and adolescents with anxiety and/or depression … but the devil is in the details. After careful and critical assessment of the Singh et al. umbrella review, we conclude that additional rigorous research is needed to support the inclusion of physical activity in guidelines for the treatment of anxiety and depression in children and adolescents.
很少有人会反对适当的体育锻炼对身心有益。对于专门从事儿童和青少年心理健康领域工作的专业人员来说，一个重要的问题是：“体育锻炼能否被视为一种应对儿童和青少年焦虑和抑郁的治疗策略？”辛格及其同事旨在通过进行一项综合性综述来严格回答这个问题，即对测试体育活动对儿童和青少年焦虑和抑郁疗效的随机对照试验（RCT）的系统评价和荟萃分析进行定量综合。在筛选了6000多篇潜在相关参考文献后，作者对来自20多项系统评价及荟萃分析的数据进行了统计汇总，其中包括总共375项RCT，涵盖38117名参与者。辛格等人的主要研究结果突出显示，体育锻炼对焦虑（标准化平均差[SMD]=0.39）和抑郁（SMD=0.4）有较小的效应量，置信区间表明真实效应实际上可能从非常小到中等（焦虑：95%CI=0.17 - 0.61；抑郁：95%CI=0.31 - 0.59）。因此，迄今为止最大规模的证据综合似乎支持体育锻炼作为对患有焦虑和/或抑郁的儿童和青少年的一种有效干预措施……但细节决定成败。在对辛格等人的综合性综述进行仔细和批判性评估后，我们得出结论，需要进行更多严格的研究来支持将体育活动纳入儿童和青少年焦虑和抑郁治疗指南。
