/ Forschung
Gertrud Thalmann-Fonds supports research project of Markus Gerber
The Gertrud Thalmann-Fonds supports an innovative research project of Prof. Dr. Markus Gerber over a period of four years. The funding amounts to a total of CHF 490,000.
The primary purpose of the project is to examine the short- and longer-term effects of a new physical activity coaching program on the sedentary and physical activity behavior, depression severity and quality of life among inpatients with major depressive disorders (MDD), after completion of their inpatient stay at a psychiatric hospital. With this project, we hope to move physical activity coaching in patients with MDD to the next level by combining affective (experience-based) and cognitive (informational) approaches. Secondary purposes are to shed light on potential mechanisms responsible for the targeted behavior change, to examine whether the sustainability of our new coaching program can be improved via continued support provided by a personal health coach, and to explore how the new coaching program is perceived by the participants.
We believe that in inpatients with MDD, physical activity coaching should move beyond social-cognitive models of behavior change. In light of the small effectiveness of previous interventions based on cognitivism, it has been argued that this perspective may overstate individuals' rational decision-making capacity to achieve health-related goals. This might particularly apply to people with MDD, a population in which specific disease symptoms (e.g. negativity bias, impaired executive functions, cognitive inflexibility) might complicate conscious and effective self-regulation. We therefore believe that alternative experience-based approaches, emphasizing the role of affect, feelings, and emotions, which acknowledge the more intuitive and also impulsive aspects of human action have great potential. We also believe that providing close on-site support to address any negative feelings and reservations associated with physical activity is needed in these patients who often have low body awareness and a negative body image.
The study is a collaborative project with three psychiatric hospitals, namely the UPK Basel (Prof. Dr. Annette Brühl, Prof. Dr. Undine Lang), the Clinic Sonnenhalde Riehen (PD Dr. Johannes Beck, Dr. Anja Oswald, Dr. Ann-Cathrine Schreiner), and the Psychiatric Services Solothurn (PD Dr. Christian Imboden, PD Dr. Thorsten Mikoteit). The study is designed as a multi-centric, three-arm randomized controlled trial (RCT) including an active control group (CG) and two intervention groups (IG1, IG2), with single-blinding, and intention-to-treat (ITT) analysis. Participants will be assigned randomly (stratified by sex) to one of two physical activity counselling conditions (with or without continuous support after post-intervention) or to an active control condition (general information about health-enhancing physical activity, regular telephone contact to discuss health related matters with a focus on healthy sleep and coping with stress, but not specifically physical activity). In total, 100 patients will be recruited (n=33 per group).