Acute effects of dance exergame and traditional continuous physical exercise on state anxiety of young adults exposed to unpleasant stimuli: a within-group randomized controlled trial.

Background: Single-arm studies identified dance exergames as an effective tool to improve state anxiety levels in young women. However, little is known when considering a non-exercise control group and its comparative effects with traditional continuous physical exercise. This study aimed to compare state anxiety levels after a single exergame intervention with those after traditional continuous physical exercise and non-exercise in young women following exposure to unpleasant stimuli.

Methods: We included 32 young healthy women (23.0±4.7 years). A within-group randomized controlled trial design was used to compare the acute effects of 48 minutes of a dance exergame versus a traditional continuous physical exercise and a control session on state anxiety. Before each session, the participants were exposed to a set of unpleasant pictures from the International Affective Picture System for 30 minutes to experimentally induce increased state anxiety. We evaluated state anxiety levels before, after, and after the sessions by using the State Anxiety Inventory.

Results: No significant interaction was found between session and time, as well as no main session effect on state anxiety levels. However, a significant main time effect was observed on the participant's state anxiety levels. The participants' state anxiety levels before International Affective Picture System were significantly lower than those after International Affective Picture System.

Conclusions: Although dance exergame and traditional continuous physical exercise could reduce state anxiety post-International Affective Picture System exposure, this improvement was not superior to that in the non-exercise control condition.