Sixty depressed French adults (34 with symptoms of moderate intensity and 26 with symptoms of severe intensity as defined by the PHQ-9 cutting scores) voluntarily participated in our comparative trial.~A control group (waiting list) of n = 16 including 8 severely depressed and 8 moderately depressed participants received no physical exercise.~For the remaining 44 participants (26 with moderate-intensity depressive symptoms and 18 with high-intensity depressive symptoms), two weekly Nordic Walking sessions of 1h were performed for 10 consecutive weeks.~Depressive symptoms were assessed using standard self-report questionnaires at various time points: 1/ enrollment (using the PHQ-9), and then (2) just before the beginning of the exercise intervention (pre-intervention; using the BDI-II), 2/ at the end of Week 5 (mid-intervention; using the BDI-II), and 3/ the day following the end of the exercise program (post-intervention)
This study is a comparative trial comparing the time course of depressive symptoms between moderately and severely depressed participants over a 10-week long exercise program