The Effects of Physical Education Course on Mental Health of Students in Bu-Ali Sina University, Hamedan-Iran

Introduction: Mental disorders are a major cause of morbidity and disability in the worldand can reduce the success and academic achievement. Experts believe that exercise can be used as a means to achieve favorable mental status. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of physical education course (I) on mental health of Bu-Ali Sina University students, Hamadan.MethodologyIn this descriptive study, 108 students of Bu-Ali Sina University, were randomly selected as research sle. Data collection tool was the 28item standard questionnaire of Mental Health of Goldberg (GHQ28) with 0. 89 reliability. To determine the suspected cases of mental disorders, cutoff point 23 has been used. Data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics (Pair ttests) at the significance level 0.05.ResultsThe findings showed that the average pretest score of students` mental health was 21.86 ± 8.96 and the average posttest score was 22.55 ± 10.83. 40.7 percent of participants were suspected to have mental disorders before participation in physical education classes (score above 23) and decreased to 37% after the end of the semester, the dependent ttest results showed no significant difference between students` mental health before and after the general physical education (p 0.05). The posttest results showed that depressive symptoms were significantly increased (p 0.05 2.81 ± 5.64).Conclusion: The results showed that participation in general physical education classes had no significant effect on mental health; also the depression of students had increased. Thus, regarding the results of this study, in order to promote students’s mental health and increase physical education efficacy and, attention to this problem seems necessary.