Background and purpose: The use of exercise-based treatments for prevalent disorders in the psychological community is very common and these treatments can be used in many cases due to their high effectiveness. One of the most important conditions that commonly occurs in women is postpartum depression. Postpartum depression is a type of depression that a mother may experience a few weeks, months or even a year after the birth of her child. Among 16% of women who suffer from this depression, the symptoms start during pregnancy. The purpose of this research was to investigate the effectiveness of aerobic exercise on reducing postpartum depression in mothers in Kerman.
Research method: The research method of this project was a semi-experimental type and a pre-test-post-test design with an experimental group and a control group. The statistical population of this research included 60 mothers of patients suffering from postpartum depression who referred to Raz Counseling Center in Kerman in the first half of 2012, among them 40 patients after conducting a clinical interview and completing the postpartum depression questionnaire. EPDS) were diagnosed as postpartum depression patients, were selected using simple random sampling method and were placed in two experimental groups (20 people) and control group (20 people). Then, the experimental group was trained and performed aerobic exercise for 12 sessions every week, 3 sessions for 2 hours, and the control group did not receive any intervention. The data of this research was analyzed using the analysis of covariance method in SPSS 24 software.
Findings: The results of the covariance analysis test showed that after the implementation of the intervention and training in aerobic exercise, the mean of the post-test in the field of depression of the experimental group decreased significantly (P=0.026). Therefore, this treatment reduces the amount of postpartum depression in the patients of the experimental group and has high effectiveness. The results of this research showed that it is possible to use sports as a highly effective treatment to reduce postpartum depression in women. did
Conclusion: The results of this research can be used to treat postpartum depression, which is a very common condition among women. Sports-based treatments increase happiness and treat sad situations by creating happiness and releasing hormones such as dopamine, high mobility and improving individual moods.