Why are we doing this research
Exercise is good for us, for our mood, our physical health and our social wellbeing (Mental Health Foundation, 2005).
Our previous research found that women with mental illness don’t do much exercise. These women said that they found exercise on prescription from the G.P. to be a negative experience. They said that they wanted to be able to exercise to help control their weight, boost their mood and help them feel better physically.
Using motivation and providing effective support in a behavioural intervention such as our exercise programme can be helpful to people with mental illness so we have included motivational support in our programme. The success of an intervention can be influenced by careful targeting to suit the participants needs and abilities. Furthermore, exercise may be more beneficial for depressed people if it is at the participant's preferred intensity (chosen level of physical exertion). For these reasons our exercise programme will be carefully matched to your needs and abilities, at a level of exertion chosen by you.
To conclude, a specially designed exercise programme such as ours, has the potential to benefit service users better than exercise on prescription.
Developing and evaluating an exercise programme that people with mental illness can use successfully is important, because improving the physical health of people with mental illness is a national priority (Department of Health 1999), and because exercise also improves mood and social wellbeing, which is of particular relevance to this group of people.
The project has been registered with the U.S. National Institutes of Health trials database.
