effect of aquatic exercise program on quality of life for patients with panic disorders

aim and background: panic disorder (pd) is an anxiety disorder that is associated with cognitive and physical symptoms and can cause cardiovascular, respiratory, neurological, intestinal, and psychological complications, sweating, chills, and fever. given that exercise in water is effective in reducing symptoms of anxiety, the aim of this study is to determine the effect of aquatic exercise on the quality of life of patients with panic disorder. methods and materials: in this study, 38 women with panic disorder with an average age of 35.21  ±9.33 and weight of 69.78  ±12.26 kg were purposefully selected after medical screening . they were assigned randomly to two experimental (n = 19) and control (n = 19) groups. their quality of life was measured at baseline and at the end of the 12th week using the world health organization quality of life questionnaire with 26 questions (whoqol-bref-26). the experimental group participated in a 12-week aquatic exercise program (3 sessions per week for an hour with an intensity of 50% to 85% of heart rate maximum storage), the control group continued their normal life. after 12 weeks, all variables were evaluated again. student’s independent t-test was used to compare between groups (p ≤ 0.05). findings: average of the two groups showed that after 12 weeks of aquatic exercise, total quality of life (p < 0.001), general quality of life (p < 0.001), general health (p < 0.001), mental health (p < 0.001), social relations (p < 0.001), environmental health (p < 0.003), and physical health (p < 0.001( of the patients increased significantly. conclusions: therefore, aquatic exercise can be used as a complementary therapy for the improvement of patients with panic disorder.