Relationship between Exercise Frequency and Stress in Korean Postmenopausal Women

This study was conducted to understand the relationship between stress and exercise frequency in postmenopausal women of Korea. The participants were 1,883 postmenopausal women who had visited a single medical center in Daegu, between 2005 January to 2009 December. We excluded women who had been previously diagnosed depressive disorders or had been treating in hormonal replacement therapy. We used PWI-SF (psychosocial well being index short form) for measuring stress. The sum of PWI-SF score was classified into healthy (less than 8), latently stressed (9∼26) and high risk stressed (more than 27) groups. The frequency of exercise was divided into none, mild (1∼2 times a week), moderate (3∼4 times a week) and intense (more than 5 times a week) groups. We analyzed the data by utilizing chi-square test, ANOVA and ANCOVA. Our study showed a significant negative correlation between PWI-SF and frequency of exercise. Furthermore our result showed a statistically significant correlation between level of education, income and stress, while alcohol and smoking were not significantly associated with PWI-SF. Our result demonstrated that higher frequency of exercise was associated with low PWI-SF score in postmenopausal women of Korea. (Korean J Stress Res 2016;24:161∼166)