The relationship between physical activity and depression among community-dwelling adults in Wuhan, China

BackgroundWhile the association between physical activity (PA) and depression has been established, there is limited research on the effect of PA on the risk of depression among Chinese individuals. Thus, this study aimed to investigate the relationship between PA and depression among Chinese individuals.MethodsWe used a stratified random sampling approach to recruit participants from five urban districts in Wuhan, China. A total of 5,583 permanent residents aged 18 years or older completed questionnaires, which included the International Physical Activity Questionnaire Short Form (IPAQ-SF) to measure PA, and the 9-item Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) to evaluate depressive symptoms. To control for potential confounders, multiple logistic regression was employed to assess the association of PA with depression.ResultsThe depression group had significantly lower weekly PA levels, measured in metabolic equivalent of task-minutes per week (MET-min/w), compared to the non-depression group [1,770 (693–4,200) MET-min/w vs. 2,772 (1,324–4,893) MET-min/w, p