Recent publications have not addressed whether depression influences ratings of perceived exertion (RPE) during exercise testing. In this study, we examined whether depression influenced the relationship between RPE and workload during exercise testing. Subjects included 12 females who had just entered the university. They were chosen from 169 the university newcomers based on completion of the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) scores and agreement to participate in the study. Six of 12 subjects showed high BDI scores (23.7±3.6) and seemed to feel high levels of stress just because they were undergraduate students. Another 6 showed low BDI scores (1.0±0.9). An exercise test was designed to increase exercise intensity to exhaustion levels using a cycle ergometer with 60rpm. During exercise, VO2, heart rate, and blood lactate accumulation were assessed as a measure of physiological index, and exertion or pain in the chest, exertion or pain in the leg, overall exertion, and feeling scores (FS) were assessed as a measure of perceptual index. FS assesses the affective dimension of the exercise experience, ranging from "very bad" to "very good" (-5 to +5). Results showed that physiological and perceptual indices of workload did not differ significantly between subjects who had high or low BDI scores. Among women in this study, RPE during cycling was not influenced by depression. Larger studies are needed to obtain results that can be generalized to other populations.
