Behavioral Change Techniques to Increase Adherence to Physical Activity in Severe Mental Disorders: The Psychiactive Project

Behavioral Change Techniques to Increase Adherence to Physical Activity in Severe Mental Disorders: The Psychiactive Project

Ismael Asad-Cabrera, Jesús Borrueco-Sánchez, Camilo López-Sánchez, Alvaro Lopez-Moral, Diego Munguía-izquierdo, Javier Bueno-Antequera
Copyright: © 2024 |Pages: 26
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-6684-6040-5.ch011
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Abstract

People with severe mental disorders (SMD) coexist with other diseases derived from a lack of physical activity and sedentary lifestyles. Although physical exercise programs can be interesting when it comes to solving this problem, adherence to them is low and the dropout rate is notable, so that these people do not manage to benefit from the positive effects of physical activity. In this sense, encouraging autonomous motivation seems to be the key to achieving greater attendance at training sessions and achieving a stage of change of action or maintenance. To this end, directing attention toward the support and satisfaction of three basic psychological needs (autonomy, competence, and relationships) seems essential. In this endeavor, different behavior change techniques (BCTs) have been successfully used to promote more self-determined motivations and increase physical activity.
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Lifestyle In Mental Health

In this chapter, lifestyle is understood as health-related behaviors, such as level of physical activity, diet, sleep and tobacco use, which would be related to the onset and symptoms of various mental illnesses (Firth et al., 2020). In fact, a psychiatric commission in a joint review paper identified these variables as key risk factors to be modified to improve mental health and physical comorbidities (Firth et al., 2019). Evidence accumulated in recent years highlights that people with SMD are more physically inactive compared to healthy people, having a sedentary behavior of about 476 minutes per day during waking hours. Moreover, the physical activity performed by these individuals is significantly lower than that of healthy people. This sedentary lifestyle leads those with SMD having a significantly higher Body Mass Index (BMI) compared to the healthy population (Vancampfort, Firth, et al., 2017). In the scientific literature, there is evidence of the protective effect of engaging in physical activity, translating into a lower probability of suffering from depression in the future (Schuch et al., 2018).

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