Effectiveness of a multicomponent physical activity program on depressive symptoms in elderly people in Brazil’s Family Health Strategy

Abstract The practice of regular physical activity may be able to prevent and reduct the depressive symptoms in the elderly population. Therefore, it is important to consider strategies that favor a more active lifestyle to avoid and control psychological morbidities in older adults. Therefore, the purpose of the present study is to evaluate the effectiveness of a multicomponent training program on the depressive symptoms in physically independent elderly people. This is a community-based intervention carried out in Brazilian Family Health Units with 26 elderly participants of both sexes, who were divided into two groups: a multicomponent training program (G1; n=11) and a control group (G2; n=15). G1 consisted of 16 exercise sessions, held twice a week for a total of 8 weeks. G2 had 4 health education meetings. Depressive symptoms were assessed using the Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS-15). The significance level adopted was 5%. Repeated measures ANOVA was used to compare the groups, time (pre and post intervention) along with the interaction between groups and time, as well as the effect size related to the differences between the variables, which was calculated using the generalized partial Eta (η2G). No significant differences were found concerning the depressive symptoms and the level of physical activity among the groups, time or the interaction between groups and time. It can be concluded that multicomponent training, despite lessening the overall manifestation of the disease, was not able to significantly reduce the depressive symptoms in the elderly population.