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Yoga in school sport - A non-randomized controlled pilot study in Germany
Michael Jeitler1, Christian S Kessler1, Hannah Zillgen2
1Institute for Social Medicine, Epidemiology and Health Economics, Germany; Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Corporate member of Freie Universität Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, and Berlin Institute of Health, Germany; Department of Internal and Integrative Medicine, Immanuel Hospital Berlin, Germany.
Objectives:
Distress is an increasing public health problem for adolescents and young adults. We aimed to evaluate potential effects of a 10-week 90-minute once-a-week yoga course.
Methods:
A non-randomized controlled study with a school sport control group was implemented in two German secondary schools. Primary outcome was stress on the Perceived Stress Scale from baseline to week 10. Secondary outcomes included depression/anxiety, attention, quality of life, mood, visual analogue scales (for pain, headache, neck tension, exhaustion, sleep), and yoga-efficacy. Parameters were assessed at pre-baseline (before holidays), baseline (after 3-week holidays, before interventions started), week 10, and at a 6-months follow-up. An intention-to-treat analysis using ANCOVA was performed.
Results:
92 participants (67 % female; 19.6 ± 2.2 years) were included into the study. No significant differences were observed between the groups with regard to PSS, at either 10 weeks (Δ=-1.4; 95 % CI: -3.6;0.8; p = 0.22) or 6 months (Δ = 2; 95 % CI: -0.2;4.2, p = 0.08). Only VAS headache in favour of yoga and HADS-D in favour of school sport showed significant group differences at the 6-months follow-up. Significant intra-group mean changes for the primary outcome and several secondary outcomes were found in the yoga group.
Conclusions:
Young adults in German secondary school settings might benefit from yoga, as the found effects were more prominent in the yoga group. However, the effects might be attributed to non-specific effects due to the chosen study design. Further studies are needed, which include high-quality study designs including randomization, longer-term follow-ups and larger sample sizes.
