Impact of Yoga on Depression and Anxiety Symptoms among Women

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Abstract
Yoga has been proposed to be an effective intervention in treating depression and anxiety
symptoms. The research was aimed at assessing the impact of yoga in treating symptoms of
depression and anxiety among women attending a yoga health center. To accomplish the
objective of the study, a sample of women who had been recommended to a yoga health center
for one year were conveniently sampled and assessed on admission using a personal
questionnaire form. The women had to be free from any previous psychological illness and were
not advised to take yoga by any physician. The potential participants were assigned to the
experimental and control group. The authors found out the experimental group had an
insignificant decrease (p=0.13) in the incidence of depression. On the other hand, there was a
significant decrease in the symptoms of state and trait anxiety with p values of p=0.03 and p<
0.001 respectively. The average depressive score in the experimental group was
12.82 and 10.79 before and after intervention respectively. Cases of
depression in pre- and post-treatment were 44.1% and 32.3% respectively.
Average state anxiety before and after intervention was 2.29 and 1.85
respectively. There were 65.3% cases of trait anxiety and 20.6% in pre and
post treatment respectively. Therefore, the findings show that yoga can be used as an
effective optional treatment for normal treatment in treating anxiety disorders.
Measurement
All cases were measured using the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) and the State-Trait Anxiety
Inventory tests. The BDI contains 21 items used to evaluate the extent of depression. BDI is the
most commonly used and reliable questionnaire for determining and evaluating the intensity of
depression in a normal population. The tool evaluates any symptoms of depression in an

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individual in the preceding week and measures the degree of depression on a scale ranging from
0 to 3 out of a total of 0 to 63. Higher scores are an indication of high depression. For instance, a
score of 0-9 designates no depression; 10-18 shows evidence of depression; 19-29 indicated
average depression, and 30-63, acute depression. This questionnaire measures three symptoms of
depression namely cognitive, affective and somatic.
The bifactor model of the BDI allows the summing up of all BDI items to an overall score.
Higher overall scores are a better way of showing the severity of depression. Additionally, the
three specific factors minimize the number of variances that are found in the BDI items, thus
improving the validity of the subscales. This further improves the validity of the instrument
because both the BDI total scores and the subscale scores can be used to determine the intensity
of depression.
Since the use of BDI global score only as a measure to ascertain variations in response to
interventions is likely to lessen the effect of treatments, its combination with the subscale scores
makes the tool more appropriate both for clinical and statistical reasons. Moreover, depressive
symptoms have varying responses to treatments, thus requiring more than one scale of
measurement. The BDI has a high internal consistency due to the high reliability of the total and
subscale scores. The BDI scores have also the ability to differentiate between individuals from
the healthcare centre and the general population thus making it have a high degree of sensitivity
to change.
The Spielberger questionnaire or the State-Trait anxiety inventory (STAI) is another commonly
used method for evaluating symptoms of anxiety and it contains equal items for trait and state
anxiety. The trait anxiety offers information regarding the current D of an individual, and the
symptoms of stressful circumstances are likely to be observed as variations in trait anxiety. The