75 THE REGULATORY ROLE OF TRADITIONAL ETHNIC SPORTS IN THE EXPRESSION OF EMOTIONAL SYMPTOMS IN PATIENTS WITH SCHIZOPHRENIA
Authors: Xu Juanjuan 
Published: February 2025

Abstract

Background
The core symptoms of schizophrenia include positive symptoms such as hallucinations and delusions, as well as negative symptoms such as emotional apathy and decreased willpower, accompanied by significant emotional symptoms such as depression and anxiety. These emotional symptoms not only affect the quality of life of patients, but are also closely related to the recurrence and prognosis of the disease. In the treatment of schizophrenia, drug therapy has certain limitations in improving emotional symptoms and may be accompanied by side effects. Traditional ethnic sports play a unique role in promoting physical and mental health. In the general population, studies have shown that traditional ethnic sports can enhance physical fitness, regulate psychological states, and improve social skills. The study aims to apply traditional ethnic sports to the emotional symptoms of patients with schizophrenia, in order to provide new ideas and methods for the auxiliary treatment of schizophrenia.

Methods
A study was conducted on 60 patients with schizophrenia, ranging in age from 18 to 60 years old, with an average age of 35 years. The duration of the disease ranged from 1 to 10 years, with an average duration of 5 years. Patients were randomly divided into an experimental group and a control group, with 30 cases in each group. The experimental group of patients received traditional ethnic sports intervention, including Tai Chi, Baduanjin and other projects. They underwent three training sessions per week, each lasting 45 minutes, for a total of 12 weeks. The control group patients received routine psychiatric care and rehabilitation guidance, and did not receive traditional ethnic sports training. Before and after the experiment, the Self Rating Depression Scale (SDS) and Self Rating Anxiety Scale (SAS) were used to evaluate the depression and anxiety symptoms of the two groups of patients.

Results
The experimental data comparison is shown in Figure 1. Figure 1 (a) shows a significant decrease in SDS scores for the experimental group patients after the experiment, from 60.36 before the experiment to 45.28 after the experiment. The SDS score of the control group patients showed no significant change before and after the experiment, with a pre experiment score of 59.26 and a post experiment score of 57.36. Figure 1 (b) shows the comparison of SAS scores. The SAS scores of the experimental group patients also significantly decreased after the experiment, from 65.96 before the experiment to 50.36 after the experiment. The SAS score of the control group patients did not show significant changes, with a pre experiment score of 64.37 and a post experiment score of 59.31.

Discussion
After undergoing traditional ethnic sports training, the patient’s depression and anxiety were significantly reduced, and their mental symptoms also improved to a certain extent. This may be due to the fact that traditional ethnic sports promote the balance of neurotransmitters in the brain through physical exercise, such as increasing the secretion of neurotransmitters such as dopamine, thereby improving the emotional state of patients.