Abstract

The present study was aimed to study relationship between physical activity and
General mental health among chronic psychiatric patients. A sample of 200 chronic
psychiatric patients (100 male patients and 100 female patients) was selected by non
probability purposive sampling technique method. The sample taken were chronic
psychiatric patients who attended psychiatric OPD and day care centre from, selected
hospitals Pune. The patients who were diagnosed as mentally ill for more than 2 years
were selected for the study. Their age was between 20 to 60 years. They responded to
two tools International Physical Activity Questionnaire Scale by Craig, Marshall,
Sjostrom, Bauman, Booth, Ainsworth & Oja et.al. (2003) and General
Health Questionnaire by Goldberg & Williams (1970). The statistical tool
Pearson’s product moment correlation method was used to find the correlation
between physical activity and general mental health among chronic psychiatric
patients. Another statistics independent‘t’-test was used to study the gender difference
in physical activity and general mental health among chronic psychiatric patients. The
results showed that there is negative correlation (‘r’=-0.606) found between physical
activity and general mental health among chronic psychiatric male and female patients
at 0.01 level of significance. There is gender difference (‘t’=1.99) found in physical
activity among chronic psychiatric patients. There is gender difference (‘t’=3.27) found
in general mental health among chronic psychiatric patients. Although the differences
is minimal. There is a moderate level of physical activities found in females and the
general mental health of females is found higher than the males and also the negative
correlation explains that the amount of physical activity is not related to the mental
health of the psychiatric patients, as the chronic psychiatric patients physical activities
are more of household, work related and transportation based and not recreational
physical activity. Hence health personnel’s have to plan the home based care with
recreational activities to improve mental health of the patients at home.