Effect of Tai Chi on psychological well-being: systematic review and meta-analysis

Psychological health seems to benefit from physical activity and exercise, but the effects of Tai Chi on psychological well-being have rarely been examined quantitatively. In this study, a systematic review of the effects of Tai Chi on stress, anxiety, depression and mood disturbance in eastern and western populations was performed.

Eleven databases (8 English and 3 Chinese) were searched through March 2009. The studies examined included: randomized controlled trials, non-randomized controlled studies and observational studies reporting at least 1 psychological health outcome. Data extraction and verification was analyzed by 3 reviewers. Meta-analysis was performed on randomized trials in each subcategory of health outcomes using a random-effects model, and the quality of each study was assessed.

Forty studies were identified with a total of 3817 subjects. Approximately 29 psychological measurements were assessed. Twenty-three of 33 randomized and non-randomized trials demonstrated that a duration of 1 hour to 1 year of regular Tai Chi significantly increased psychological well-being including reduction of stress (effect size [ES], 0.66; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.23 to 1.09), anxiety (ES, 0.66; 95% CI, 0.29 to 1.03), and depression (ES, 0.56; 95% CI, 0.31 to 0.80), and enhanced mood and emotion (ES, 0.45; 95% CI, 0.20 to 0.69) in community-dwelling healthy participants as well as in patients with chronic conditions. Seven observational studies with relatively large sample sizes confirmed the beneficial link between Tai Chi practice and psychological health.

Overall, Tai Chi appears to be associated with improvements in psychological well-being including reduced stress, anxiety, depression and mood disturbance, and increased self-esteem.

Variation in designs, comparisons, heterogeneous outcomes and inadequate controls of the studies reviewed were the limiting factors towards drawing definitive conclusions. Well-controlled, high quality randomized trials of longer durations are needed to confirm the findings of this review in order to make more informed clinical decisions.

Reference
Wang C, Bannuru R, Ramel J, et al. Tai Chi on psychological well-being: systematic review and meta-analysis. BMC Complem Alter Med 2010, 10:23doi:10.1186/1472-6882-10-23

Article URL http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6882/10/23