The relationship between physical exercise and anxiety in critical care nurses

A descriptive, nonexperimental survey of critical care nurses was conducted to determine if critical care nurses who were regular exercisers had lower anxiety levels than those who were not regular exercisers. Regular exercisers were critical care nurses who exercised 2-3 times per week, exercised at least 30 minutes per session, and had been exercising for at least 6 months to a year. A nonrandom sample of 23 local chapter members of the American Association of Critical care nurses participated. There were 7 {30.4%) who met the criteria to be considered regular exercisers, and 16 {69.6%) were considered not regular exercisers. State and trait anxiety, determined by the STAI (Spielberger, 1983), was examined in its relationship to exercise using the Mann-Whitney u statistical test for analysis of two groups. No significant difference between anxiety levels for the nurses who exercised regularly and those who did not exercise regularly was found.