HIIT Vs Snack Exercises on the Academic Stress of University Students: a Randomized Controlled Trial
试验速览
- 阶段
- 不适用
- 状态
- 尚未招募
- 入组人数
- 36
- 试验地点
- 1
- 主要终点
- Academic Stress Levels
研究概览
简要总结
Mental health among Chilean university students has steadily deteriorated since 2020. One of the factors associated with mental health is the academic workload that comes with transitioning from high school to higher education, which may lead to an increase in stress levels due to university life referred to as academic stress. Academic stress has been linked to multiple negative outcomes in university students, such as a lower quality of life, as well as cardiovascular risk markers, including body composition (e.g., higher fat percentage), muscle function, aerobic capacity, and physical activity levels. Academic stress affecting more than 50% of university students represents a health issue that needs to be addressed, not only because it can lead to chronic stress, but also because it increases cardiovascular risk in a Chilean population where more than 10,000,000 people are overweight, obese, or have insufficient physical activity levels.
Academic stress and its associated complications represent a prevalent health issue among university students. It is essential to implement interventions that help reduce academic stress while also counteracting its negative effects on quality of life, body composition, muscle function, aerobic capacity, and physical activity levels.
Cost-effective tools, both in terms of financial resources and time, are needed. From this perspective, physical exercise meets both requirements, as it is inexpensive to implement and there are various protocols such as high-intensity interval training and "exercise snacks" that can require less than 40 minutes per week while providing beneficial effects on academic stress, body composition muscle function, aerobic capacity, and physical activity levels in university students.
Expanding the body of evidence on these different training protocols would allow us to address multiple issues simultaneously. The primary one is academic stress and its related consequences, but also to generate new evidence on aspects not yet covered in the current literature, such as the impact on university students' quality of life, and to provide an accessible treatment tool for the future. Importantly, implementing these short-duration programs would also enable students to maintain their academic responsibilities, as the proposed protocols require no more than 40 minutes per week (<10 minutes per day). Finally, these programs could be implemented within university facilities, which, in the long term, could become a permanent tool for improving students' university experience.
详细描述
he mental health of Chilean university students has deteriorated since the COVID-19 pandemic. Academic factors (e.g., workload pressure or fear of poor performance) play a significant role in the development of mental health disorders in university students. One of the most frequently mentioned conditions among Chilean university students is stress, with 56% of students experiencing some form of stress, ranging from mild to extreme. Importantly, academic stress can be a predictor of chronic stress in university students. Therefore, it is essential to manage students' stress levels, as stress is associated with various negative effects on quality of life, body composition, and physical activity levels.
Specifically, a systematic review study found a negative association between academic stress and quality of life in university students. Similarly, higher academic stress scores are associated with a higher body mass index and fat percentage. Likewise, university students with obesity exhibit higher levels of academic stress. Additionally, higher levels of academic stress are linked to lower levels of physical activity. Consequently, the presence of academic stress has a detrimental effect on quality of life, body composition, and physical activity levels. Interestingly, individuals who do not meet adequate physical activity levels also show poorer muscle function and aerobic capacity. Thus, academic stress is involved in both the mental and physical health of university students.
It has been shown that engaging in vigorous physical activity can reduce academic stress among university students. This presents an interesting opportunity to improve the previously mentioned aspects negatively affected by academic stress. Unfortunately, 75.1% of university students report that lack of time is the main reason for not engaging in physical activity. Therefore, it is crucial to propose time-efficient physical activity protocols. In this regard, high-intensity interval training (HIIT) and exercise snack protocols meet the criteria of high intensity and time efficiency. As a result, they could serve as an effective way to promote higher physical activity levels among university students, thereby reducing the negative effects of academic stress on both mental and physical health.
There is some evidence supporting the benefits of high-intensity interval training for reducing stress in university students. Additionally, HIIT protocols have demonstrated positive effects on body composition, leading to a reduction in body fat percentage and visceral adipose tissue, which is closely linked to the development of cardiovascular diseases. Therefore, this type of training protocol could contribute to improvements in cardiovascular risk among university students. Similarly, these training protocols enhance aerobic capacity and muscle function, variables that are also found to be altered in the university population. Interestingly, to the best of our knowledge, no concrete benefits of HIIT protocols on university students' quality of life have been reported. Therefore, this would be a significant aspect of our research, as quality of life is a variable that tends to decline in this population.
Exercise snacks are a more novel tool for achieving health goals in the population, with their main characteristic being the short duration of training intervals (<10 minutes per day in total). The primary goal of this type of training is to break sedentary behavior and increase daily physical activity levels in the population in which they are implemented. Given the high levels of sedentary behavior and low physical activity levels observed in university students, this type of training could serve as a strategy to reduce sedentary behavior and increase physical activity levels. Interestingly, there is evidence supporting the benefits of exercise snacks in improving aerobic capacity, muscle function, and body composition variables that, as previously mentioned, are or could be negatively affected by academic stress in university students. Therefore, implementing a training program of this nature would be beneficial for university students.
研究设计
- 研究类型
- Interventional
- 分配方式
- Randomized
- 干预模型
- Parallel
- 主要目的
- Treatment
- 盲法
- Double (Care Provider, Investigator)
入排标准
- 年龄范围
- 18 Years 至 30 Years（Adult）
- 性别
- All
- 接受健康志愿者
- 是
入选标准
- •University students from the 1st to 4th year at the Metropolitan University of Education Sciences and Silva-Henriquez Catholic University
排除标准
- •High level of physical activity classification in the GPAQ questionnaire.
- •Musculoskeletal conditions that prevent normal physical activity.
- •Cardiac disease that contraindicates high-intensity exercise.
- •Diagnosed mental health condition.
结局指标
主要结局
Academic Stress Levels
时间窗: T0 (before the training protocol) and T12 (after 12 weeks of training).
It will be measured using the SISCO II questionnaire, validated in the Chilean population, with items rated on a Likert scale from 1 to 5. The questionnaire consists of five dimensions: stressors, physical and psychological reactions, social behavior reactions, coping strategies, and total reaction.
次要结局
- Quality of Life Levels(T0 (before the training protocol) and T12 (after 12 weeks of training).)
- Physical Activity Levels(T0 (before the training protocol) and T12 (after 12 weeks of training).)
- Sedentary Behaviour Levels(T0 (before the training protocol) and T12 (after 12 weeks of training))
- Upper Body Muscle Strength(T0 (before the training protocol) and T12 (after 12 weeks of training))
- Lower Body Muscle Strength(T0 (before the training protocol) and T12 (after 12 weeks of training))
- Aerobic Capacity(T0 (before the training protocol) and T12 (after 12 weeks of training).)
- Body Weight(T0 (before the training protocol) and T12 (after 12 weeks of training).)
- Height(T0 (before the training protocol) and T12 (after 12 weeks of training).)
- Body Mass Index(T0 (before the training protocol) and T12 (after 12 weeks of training).)
- Waist Circumference(T0 (before the training protocol) and T12 (after 12 weeks of training).)
- Fat mass(T0 (before the training protocol) and T12 (after 12 weeks of training).)
- Waist to Height Ratio(T0 (before the training protocol) and T12 (after 12 weeks of training).)
- Skeletal Muscle Mass(T0 (before the training protocol) and T12 (after 12 weeks of training).)
- Fat Mass Percentage(T0 (before the training protocol) and T12 (after 12 weeks of training).)
- Visceral Adiposse Tissue Area(T0 (before the training protocol) and T12 (after 12 weeks of training).)
- Physical Activity Enjoyment(T0 (before the training protocol) and T12 (after 12 weeks of training).)
研究者
Mauricio Inostroza Mondaca
Principal Investigator
Universidad Metropolitana de Ciencias de la Educacion