37 THE POTENTIAL OF SPORTS INTERVENTION IN IMPROVING SYMPTOMS OF SCHIZOPHRENIA PATIENTS
Authors: Guo Rui 
Published: February 2025

Abstract

Background
Sports intervention has become an important means of improving symptoms of schizophrenia, with simple and easy to promote methods that are easily accepted by more patients. In recent studies, sports interventions often utilize environmental factors to stimulate the functioning of the brain’s nerves through physical exercise, gradually restoring life skills and social abilities. The study adopts a combination of physical education and medicine to intervene in symptoms of schizophrenia, which not only improves the physical and mental quality, but also enhances the social function and quality of life of patients, providing more possibilities for the development of sports treatment programs.

Methods
A study selected 120 patients with schizophrenia from a psychiatric hospital and randomly divided them into an experimental group (60 patients) and a control group (60 patients). On the basis of routine nursing interventions, the experimental group used appropriate physical exercise methods, 3 times a week, for 30 minutes to 1 hour each time. For elderly and physically weak patients, high-intensity or high-frequency exercise should not be used. At the same time, the control group did not receive physical exercise. After 3 months of treatment intervention, two groups were evaluated and analyzed. The clinical symptoms of the two groups before and after intervention were evaluated using the Scale for Assessment of Negative Symptoms (SANS), Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS), Inpatient Psychiatric Rehabilitation Outcome Scale (IPROS), and Schizophrenia Quality of Life Scale (SQLS). Finally, the scores of the two groups before and after treatment were compared, and statistical analysis was conducted using SPSS 25.0 software to demonstrate the improvement effect of sports intervention on patients with schizophrenia.

Results
In the SANS score of attention disorders, the scores of the experimental group before and after treatment were 6.78 ± 1.64 points and 4.31 ± 1.51 points, respectively, and the difference was statistically significant (P&lt;0.001). In the BPRS score, the control group had scores of 58.32 ± 5.24 and 36.41 ± 5.11 before and after treatment, respectively, while the experimental group had scores of 59.42 ± 5.29 and 32.47 ± 5.12 before and after treatment. Clinical symptoms significantly decreased, and the difference was statistically significant (P&lt;0.001). Finally, in the SQLS score, the psychological and social disorders of the experimental group decreased to 25.43 ± 5.21 points under the treatment of sports intervention, and their motivation and energy also significantly decreased to 17.25 ± 4.72 points. The comprehensive results indicate that sports assisted intervention has a good effect on the physical fitness and psychological state of patients with schizophrenia.

Discussion
During long-term medication and nursing treatment, patients may experience a decline in their motor and self-care abilities, reduced physical function, and in severe cases, physical disorders such as language confusion and behavioral abnormalities. Therefore, the sports intervention method used in this study can not only improve patients’ motor function and physical fitness, but also promote brain nerve activity, reduce clinical symptoms, relieve emotional stress, and thus improve patients’ thinking, behavior, willpower, and emotional functions.