The Impact of Non-Pharmacologic Lifestyle Interventions in People with Severe Mental Illness A Systematic Review

Background In recent years public and research interests focused more and more in lifestyle as a key factor for health. Particularly lifestyle of people with severe mental illness in combination with modifiable risk factors and adverse effects of the antipsychotic medication is especially critical. The present paper investigated the effect of multi-modal healthy lifestyle interventions concerning weight and BMI reduction. Methods We systematically searched electronic databases (Medline, EMBASE, PsycINFO, Cochrane Library) for reviews and RCTs. Results Six systematic reviews and three single RCTs met inclusion criteria. Analyzed lifestyle interventions, mostly combined approaches of nutrition and sports, showed short and medium term effects in weight and BMI reduction compared with controls. Conclusion Lifestyle interventions appear effective for treating overweight among people with serious mental illness. Further research is needed for evaluating long-term effects of the lifestyle interventions as well as focusing special components of the interventions with especially high user benefit.