Effectiveness of Yoga Intervention on Patients with Mild and Moderate Depression - A Randomized Controlled Study

After screening, a sample size of 90 participants with mild and moderate levels of depression attending the outpatient service of the Psychiatry Department of Sri Ramachandra Institute of Medical College and Research Institute will be recruited with informed consent before beginning the study and will be equally divided into two groups namely; the control group (45) and the interventional group (45). As the meta-analysis of studies of yoga for depression suggests Cohen’s d within groups was 0.45 for aerobic exercise and 0.38 for yoga training. A power analysis in G power assuming two independent means indicated 38 people per arm are necessary to have 80% power to detect this magnitude of a difference between samples. The sample size has been statistically calculated as (n=90). Though 38 people per arm are needed, however, we are recruiting 45 people per arm by expecting a 20% of dropout rate. Therefore, depressive patients (n=90), with mild and moderate levels of depression ranging between the age group of 18 - 45 years will be recruited for the study, excluding the depressive patients with intellectual disability, substance abuse disorder (except nicotine and caffeine), dementia, epilepsy, or cerebrovascular accidents, history of psychosis or bipolar disorder, and patients with suicidal risks or catatonia. The physiological, psychological, and neuropsychological parameters will be measured and studied with their other psycho-socio-demographic details on both groups. The participants in the control group will be taking conventional treatment and the participants in the interventional group will be taking the conventional treatment&n