Youth with heart disease experience comorbidities that impact physical activity (PA), mental health (MH), and quality of life (QoL). Purpose : To explore the relationship between PA and MH and QoL in adolescents with cardiac arrhythmia disorders, cardiomyopathies, or single ventricle heart disease. Methods : Participants completed surveys/questionnaires regarding PA (Physical Activity Questionnaire for Adolescents), anxiety (Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System PROMIS-Anxiety), depressive symptoms (PROMIS-Depressive Symptoms), global QoL (Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory PedsQL-generic), and cardiac disease-specific QoL (PedsQL-cardiac). Pearson correlations and regression analysis examined relationships between PA and MH/QoL. Results : The study included 63 participants (males = 32, 50.7%), with an age of 15.46 (1.82) years. The sample was mostly inactive (Physical Activity Questionnaire for Adolescents score: 1.95 0.65). Outcomes used T -scores for PROMIS-Anxiety (49.7 12.2) and PROMIS-Depressive Symptoms (46.9 12.7), and summary scores for PedsQL-generic (75.2 18.9) and PedsQL-cardiac (74.7 17.5). There was a negative correlation between PA and MH (PROMIS-Anxiety: r = −.338, PROMIS-Depressive Symptoms: r = −.337; P < .05) and positive correlation between PA and QoL (PedsQL-generic: r = .37, PedsQL-cardiac: r = .39; P < .001). Adjusting for key variables using regression analysis, greater participation in PA was independently related to decreased anxiety and depression and greater QoL. Conclusions : Greater PA engagement was associated with more favorable MH and QoL in adolescents with cardiac arrhythmia disorders, cardiomyopathy, or single ventricle heart disease.
Olson et al. (Wed,) studied this question.