Author: María Del Carmen Carcelén-Fraile PhD1, Fidel Hita-Contreras MD,PhD1, Antonio Martínez-Amat PhD1, Vânia Brandão Loureiro PhD2, Nuno Eduardo Marques de Loureiro PhD2, José Daniel Jiménez-García PhD3, Raquel Fábrega-Cuadros PhD1, Agustín Aibar-Almazán PhD1
Affiliation: <sup>1</sup> Department of Health Sciences, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Jaén. Jaén, Spain.
<sup>2</sup> Escola Superior de Educação, Instituto Politécnico de Beja, Beja, Portugal.
<sup>3</sup> Department of Physical Education, Faculty of Education Sciences, University of Cádiz, Cádiz, Spain.
Conference/Journal: Eur J Sport Sci
Date published: 2022 Feb 18
Other:
Special Notes: doi: 10.1080/17461391.2022.2044915. , Word Count: 207
ABSTRACTThe aim of the present study was to analyze the effects of a Qigong exercise program on the severity of the menopausal symptoms and health-related quality of life (HRQoL) of community-dwelling postmenopausal women. This was done by means of a randomized clinical trial with a sample of 125 women who were assigned to either a control (n = 62) or an experimental group (n = 63). The severity of their menopause-related symptoms and HRQoL were assessed through the Menopause Rating Scale (MRS) and the 36-item Short-Form Health Survey (SF-36) respectively, before and after the intervention period. The main findings of our study reveal significant improvement in the severity of menopausal symptoms at the somatic, psychological, and urogenital levels, as well as in the total score of the MRS. Additionally, participants assigned to the Qigong group experienced improvement in the general health, physical functioning, role-physical, bodily pain, vitality, and mental health domains of the 36-item Short-Form Health Survey, as well as in its physical component and mental component summaries. We can therefore conclude that, among Spanish postmenopausal women, a twelve-week Qigong exercise program has beneficial effects on the severity of menopausal symptoms and HRQoL.Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT03989453..
Keywords: Qigong; menopausal symptoms; older women; postmenopausal women; quality of life.
PMID: 35179431 DOI: 10.1080/17461391.2022.2044915