Effectiveness of Yoga on Quality of Life among Patients with Depression: A Randomised Controlled Trial

Introduction: Depression is the overriding reason for disability and its global prevalence has been increasing in recent decades. Depression is a substantial contributor to the global disease burden and a crucial determinant of quality of life and survival. Aim: To determine the quality of life of patients with depression who received yoga intervention and compare it to patients who received conventional antidepressant medication (without yoga intervention) in terms of various domains. Materials and Methods: This randomised controlled trial was conducted in Department of Physiology with the collaboration of the Department of Psychiatry at Sawai Man Singh Medical College, Jaipur, Rajasthan, India, from November 2018 to February 2020. The study involved clinically diagnosed 60 patients with mild to moderate depression between the age groups of 18 to 45 years. The participants were split into two groups. The participants were split into two groups: interventional and control. The interventional group received a set of yoga exercises for three months in addition to conventional antidepressant treatment, while the control group received only conventional antidepressant treatment for the same duration. The World Health Organisation Quality of Life-BREF (WHOQOL-BREF) scale was used to assess the quality of life in both study groups at baseline, and after one month and three months. The unpaired Student’s t-test and repeated measures Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) were applied for two and more groups respectively. A p-value <0.05 was considered as statistically significant. Results: The present study included 60 patients with depression; out of them 39 were male and 21 were females. A statistically significant difference was observed in WHOQOL-BREF scores between the interventional and control group in the physical (p-value<0.001) and psychological health (p-value<0.001) domain after three months of follow-up, but it was more improved among the interventional group. A significant difference was observed after one month in the interventional group in overall quality of life (p-value=0.004), physical (p-value<0.001), and psychological health domain (p-value=0.009) of quality of life. While in the control group, physical (p-value<0.001) and psychological health domain (p-value<0.001), as well as social relationships domain (p-value=0.015) significantly improved after three months of antidepressant treatment. Conclusion: Three month of yoga practice improved the overall quality of life and all domains of quality of life. Whereas, three months of conventional antidepressant treatment improved only physical, psychological health and social relationship.