76 THE ALLEVIATING EFFECT OF BASKETBALL ON SOCIAL WITHDRAWAL AND EMOTIONAL DELAY IN PATIENTS WITH SCHIZOPHRENIA
Authors: Zhao Chenhui 
Published: February 2025

Abstract

Background
In recent years, as a serious mental disorder, the treatment and rehabilitation of schizophrenia have become a focus of attention in the medical community. Schizophrenia patients often suffer from symptoms such as social withdrawal and emotional delay, which seriously affect their quality of life. Previous studies have shown that physical activity has a certain positive effect on the rehabilitation of patients with schizophrenia. Basketball, as a team sport, can not only exercise the body, but also improve patients’ social and emotional expression abilities. However, there is still a lack of research on the alleviating effect of basketball on social withdrawal and emotional delay in patients with schizophrenia. Therefore, the study aims to explore the alleviating effect of basketball on social withdrawal and emotional delay in patients with schizophrenia, providing new ideas and methods for the rehabilitation of schizophrenia patients.

Methods
The study recruited a total of 100 patients with schizophrenia as research subjects, aged between [18, 55] years old, all of whom met the diagnostic criteria for schizophrenia and were in a stable state of illness. Randomly divide the patients into an experimental group and a control group, with 50 people in each group. The experimental group of patients participated in an 8-week basketball intervention program, with 4 basketball training and activities per week, each lasting 50 minutes. The content of basketball includes basic dribbling, passing, shooting exercises, and simple team games. The activity venue is selected in a professional indoor basketball court, organized and guided by experienced sports coaches and psychiatric medical staff to ensure safety and standardization during the sports process. The control group patients only received routine psychiatric care and rehabilitation guidance at the same time, and did not participate in basketball sports. During the experiment, the Social Retention Seale (SRS) and Toronto Alexios Scale (TAS) were used to evaluate the degree of social withdrawal and emotional delay in patients.

Results
The comparison of scores between the experimental group before and after intervention showed that after 12 weeks of basketball training, the SRS score of the experimental group decreased from 75.36 ± 8.52 points before intervention to 46.27 ± 6.69 points after intervention, and the TAS score decreased from 72.14 ± 7.86 points before intervention to 52.53 ± 5.12 points after intervention. The SRS score and TAS score of the control group showed little change before and after intervention. The statistical analysis results showed that the SRS score and AES score of the experimental group after intervention were significantly different from those before intervention (P&lt;0.001), and basketball training had a positive and significant impact on patients.

Discussion
Basketball has a significant alleviating effect on social withdrawal and emotional delay in patients with schizophrenia, and has important practical value. In terms of clinical rehabilitation treatment, basketball can be considered as an auxiliary treatment method in the rehabilitation plan of patients with schizophrenia, which can help improve their social and emotional expression abilities, thereby enhancing their social function and quality of life.