Schizophrenia is a severe mental health issue. It impairs a person's thinking, emotions, and behaviour. Those who suffer from this condition may seem detached from reality, causing distress for themselves and their loved ones.
According to a recent study published in Schizophrenia Research, yoga and mindfulness interventions are more effective compared to other mind-body therapies in mitigating the symptoms of schizophrenia.
This meta-analysis aims to evaluate and compare the effectiveness of different mind-body therapies for reducing schizophrenia symptoms. A systematic search was conducted using PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library, Web of Science, and Scopus. Randomized controlled trials assessing the effects of mind-body therapies on schizophrenia patients were included. The search covered the period from inception to November 17th, 2022. The Cochrane risk of bias tool assessed the methodological quality of the trials. A network meta-analysis was conducted to compare the effects of Yoga, Mindfulness, Tai Chi, Baduanjin, and Yijinjing.
The following are the findings of the study:
22 RCTs had a total of 2064 subjects.
Yoga and Mindfulness interventions were more effective than other mind-body therapies in reducing schizophrenia symptoms.
Specifically, Yoga improved PANSS-positive and PANSS-negative symptom scores with SUCRA 74.8 % and 80.4 % respectively.
Mindfulness improved PANSS-positive symptom scores with SUCRA 85.6%.
The analysis in total included 22 randomized controlled trials which involved a total of 2064 subjects. The network meta-analysis found that Yoga and Mindfulness interventions were more effective than other mind-body therapies in reducing the symptoms of schizophrenia
This research suggests that Yoga may be a potential therapy for schizophrenia, but the limited sample size and low quality of the studies included restrict the applicability of our results. They added that more high-quality research is needed to confirm our findings.
Reference:
Su Y, Pan X, Li H, Zhang G. Effects of mind-body therapies on schizophrenia: A systematic review and network meta-analysis. Schizophr Res. 2024 Jan 5;264:236-247. doi: 10.1016/j.schres.2023.12.030. Epub ahead of print.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38185028/