To Örebro University

Objective: To investigate whether dance intervention influenced self-rated health for adolescent girls with internalizing problems.

Design: Randomized controlled intervention trial with follow-up measures at 8, 12, and 20 months after baseline.

Setting: A Swedish city with a population of 130 000.

Participants: Girls aged 13 to 18 years with internalizing problems, ie, stress and psychosomatic symptoms. A total of 59 girls were randomized to the intervention group and 53 were randomized to the control group.

Intervention: The intervention comprised dance classes twice weekly during 8 months. Each dance class lasted 75 minutes and the focus was on the joy of movement, not on performance.

Main Outcome Measures: Self-rated health was the primary outcome; secondary outcomes were adherence to and experience of the intervention.

Results: The dance intervention group improved their self-rated health more than the control group at all follow-ups. At baseline, the mean score on a 5-point scale was 3.32 for the dance intervention group and 3.75 for the control group. The difference in mean change was 0.30 (95% CI, −0.01 to 0.61) at 8 months, 0.62 (95% CI, 0.25 to 0.99) at 12 months, and 0.40 (95% CI, 0.04 to 0.77) at 20 months. Among the girls in the intervention group, 67% had an attendance rate of 50% to 100%. A total of 91% of the girls rated the dance intervention as a positive experience.

Conclusions: An 8-month dance intervention can improve self-rated health for adolescent girls with internalizing problems. The improvement remained a year after the intervention

Background: The increasing prevalence of psychological health problems among adolescent girls is alarming. Knowledge of beneficial effects of physical activity on psychological health is widespread. Dance is a popular formof exercise that could be a protective factor in preventing and treating symptoms of depression. The aim of thisstudy was to assess the cost-effectiveness of a dance intervention in addition to usual school health services foradolescent girls with internalizing problems, compared with usual school health services alone.

Methods: A cost-utility analysis from a societal perspective based on a randomized controlled intervention trial wasperformed. The setting was a city in central Sweden with a population of 130 000. A total of 112 adolescent girls, 13–18 years old, with internalizing problems participated in the study. They were randomly assigned to intervention (n =59) or control (n = 53) group. The intervention comprised dance twice weekly during eight months in addition to usualschool health services. Costs for the stakeholder of the intervention, treatment effect and healthcare costs wereconsidered. Gained quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs) were used to measure the effects. Quality of life was measuredwith the Health Utility Index Mark 3. Cost-effectiveness ratios were based on the changes in QALYs and net costs forthe intervention group compared with the control group. Likelihood of cost-effectiveness was calculated.

Results: At 20 months, quality of life had increased by 0.08 units more in the intervention group than in the controlgroup (P = .04), translating to 0.10 gained QALYs. The incremental cost-effectiveness ratio was USD $3,830 per QALYand the likelihood of cost-effectiveness was 95%.

Conclusions: Intervention with dance twice weekly in addition to usual school health services may be consideredcost-effective compared with usual school health services alone, for adolescent girls with internalizing problems.