Lifestyle modification as intervention for seasonal affective disorder: A systematic review.
Study Goal
The researchers aimed to synthesize current evidence on the effectiveness and safety of lifestyle modifications (including light therapy) for seasonal affective disorder (SAD).
Results Summary
The study identified 6 RCTs on lifestyle modifications (diet, exercise, staying outdoors, sleep, music therapy) in SAD patients, all showing improvements in depression scores but with high risk of bias and very low certainty of evidence. No valid conclusions could be drawn due to methodological limitations and small sample sizes.
Population
Patients with seasonal affective disorder (SAD).
Effective Dosage
Not specified
Duration
Not specified
Interactions
None mentioned
| Intervention | Direction | Endpoint | Population | Dosage | Impact | Claim # |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Bright light therapy (BLT) | neutral | seasonal affective disorder (SAD) | patients with seasonal affective disorder (SAD) | - | first line treatments | #1 |
pharmacological therapies | neutral | seasonal affective disorder (SAD) | patients with seasonal affective disorder (SAD) | - | first line treatments | #2 |
lifestyle modifications (nutrition, exercise, staying outdoors, sleep, social aspects, mindfulness methods) | decrease | depressive symptoms | SAD patients | - | possible effectiveness | #3 |
diet | decrease | depression scores | SAD patients | - | showed improvements | #4 |
exercise | decrease | depression scores | SAD patients | - | showed improvements | #5 |
staying outdoors | decrease | depression scores | SAD patients | - | showed improvements | #6 |
sleep | decrease | depression scores | SAD patients | - | showed improvements | #7 |
music therapy | decrease | depression scores | SAD patients | - | showed improvements | #8 |
Bright light therapy (BLT) and pharmacological therapies currently represent the first line treatments for patients with seasonal affective disorder (SAD). Lifestyle modifications offer a diverse field of additional intervention options. Since it is unclear, if lifestyle modifications are effective in SAD patients, this systematic review aims to synthesize the current evidence on their effectiveness and safety. We systematically searched for randomized controlled trials (RCTs) assessing lifestyle modifications (nutrition, exercise, staying outdoors, sleep, social aspects, mindfulness methods) in SAD patients. We defined the primary outcome as the post-therapeutic extent of depressive symptoms, measured by validated psychiatric symptom scales. Due to the insufficient number of studies and the high heterogeneity of the interventions we were not able to calculate a meta-analysis. We identified 6 studies from the following areas of lifestyle modification: diet, exercise, staying outdoors, sleep and music therapy. All studies showed improvements of depression scores in the intervention as well as in the control groups. The risk of bias was rated as high for all studies and the certainty of evidence was rated as very low. The results point towards the possible effectiveness of the interventions examined, but due to the small number of studies found, too small sample sizes and methodological limitations, we cannot draw a valid conclusion about the effectiveness of lifestyle-modifying measures in SAD patients. Larger, high-quality RCTs are needed to make evidence-based recommendations and thus to expand the range of therapeutic options for SAD.