Prevalencia de realización y prescripción de ejercicio físico en pacientes diagnosticados de ansiedad y depresión()

OBJECTIVE: To estimate the prevalence of physical exercise practice in patients diagnosed with anxiety and/or depression. DESIGN: Cross-sectional, observational study. LOCATION: Sabugo and la Magdalena primary care centers in Avilés. PARTICIPANTS: Patients aged 18 to 75 years diagnosed with anxiety and/or depression, consumers of psychoactive drugs in the three months previous to the realization of the study. We selected 376 patients by simple random sampling stratified by health center, making them a telephone survey. MAIN MEASUREMENTS: Age, sex, physical exercise realization, type and duration of exercise, diagnosis of anxiety and/or depression, exercise prescription, prescriber health personnel and use of psychotropic medication. RESULTS: 294 participants (78.19% of selected) with a mean age of 55.33 years (55.32 ± 12.53 SD) and 78.2% were female. 60.9% were diagnosed with anxiety, 59.5% with depression and 20.4% both diagnoses. 62.9% used antidepressants, benzodiazepines 76.9% and 39.79% both treatments. 58.5% (95%CI: 52.70-64.31) performed exercise of which 44.77% did it 3-5 times/week. The mean duration was 1.24 h each time (95%CI: 0.53-1.96). The physical exercise was prescribed to the 59.18% (95%CI: 53.39-64.97); 90.23% by the family physician, 63.22% primary care nurse, 17.24% psychiatrist and 5.17% psychologist. The adherence to the prescription was 59.77% (95%CI: 52.20-67.34). CONCLUSIONS: The percentage of anxious and/or depressed patients who practiced exercise is similar to the general population but should be higher. The exercise prescription by health personnel is insufficient.