RESULTS
depression, depressed, psychiatric, muscle relaxation
MUSCLE RELAXATION
The study findings revealed that the majority of patients in both the intervention and control groups were female. Most patients were under 40 years of age, with 11 patients in the intervention group and 13 in the control group. The mean age of the subjects in the intervention group was 47.06±11.45 and 40.66±11.45 in the control group. The chi-square test did not indicate any statistically significant difference between the groups in terms of age, and the two groups were considered homogenous in this regard (P=0.666). The majority of patients in both groups were married and had a middle school education. Most of the patients in both groups lived in cities. The participants in the groups were found to be similar in terms of the history of other physical and mental illnesses and duration of illness, which was mostly less than 3 years. Additionally, most patients in both groups had a history of taking medications.The mean depression scores of the subjects in the groups were significantly different before and after the intervention (P<0.001). Furthermore, the mean difference for the subjects in the intervention group was 29.66 and that of the control group 13.96, indicating that the movement therapy and progressive muscle relaxation program significantly reduced the depression of patients in the intervention group compared with the control. Although the subjects in the control group reported a lower level of depression after the intervention than before, the differences in their depression scores were not significant (Comparing the participants' mean depression scores in the two groups.In order to compare the mean depression scores between the groups before and after the intervention, the independent samples t-test was used. The mean depression score for the subjects in the intervention group was 37.26±7.70, and 36.93±8.166 in the control group before the intervention. According to the independent samples t-test, no statistically significant difference was observed between the groups concerning their depression scores before the intervention (P=0.871). Furthermore, the mean depression score for the participants in the intervention group was 8.01±5.22, and 22.96±9.43 in the control group after the intervention. According to the independent samples t-test, a statistically significant difference was observed between the groups concerning their depression scores after the intervention (P=0.001), confirming a greater decrease in the scores of depression in the intervention group compared with the control (To evaluate the efficacy of the movement therapy program on depression in psychiatric inpatients, we conducted a univariate analysis of covariance (ANCOVA). Before conducting the analysis, assumptions were assessed by employing the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test to evaluate data normality and Levene's test to assess the homogeneity of error variance between groups. Since the F-value was not significant (P>0.05), the equality of the error variance for the two groups was confirmed, indicating no difference between them.The results of the post-test showed a significant difference between the groups, with a significant F-value of 60.846 (p<0.00001) in their depression scores. The effect size of 0.516 indicates a substantial difference between the two groups, as shown in The results of univariate ANCOVA for intergroup differences in depression.Subsequently, the movement therapy program along with progressive muscle relaxation reduced the level of depression in the depressed patients admitted to the psychiatric ward.