Exercise in the treatment of clinical anxiety in general practice - a systematic review and meta-analysis.

Anxiety disorders are common, yet treatment options in general practice are often limited to medication or CBT. There is a lack of evidence for the effectiveness of exercise in the treatment of anxiety in patients who present to general practice and also about the intensity of exercise required to lead to improvement. The aim of this systematic review was to assess the use of exercise versus waiting list control groups in the treatment of anxiety and also to assess the benefit of high intensity exercise vs low intensity exercise. Long term follow up scores were also analysed. We included patients who met diagnostic criteria for anxiety disorders or had clinically raised anxiety levels on a validated rating scale and performed a subgroup analysis of the outcomes between the two groups. The intervention was any aerobic exercise programme carried out for at least two weeks, or exercise carried out at high intensity for at least two weeks. The comparison groups were either a waiting list control group or low intensity exercise.