Office workers are at high risk for many chronic diseases, lowering their health-related quality of life (HRQOL). This systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to summarize the effects of physical exercise on HRQOL in office workers with and without health problems using data obtained from randomized controlled trials (RCTs), quasi-experimental, and observational studies. We searched PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, Cochrane Library, and several grey literature databases, and identified 26 relevant studies for the synthesis. Overall, physical exercise significantly improved general (standardized mean difference (SMD) 1.05; 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.66 to 1.44) and mental (SMD 0.42; 95% CI 0.19 to 0.66) HRQOL in office workers. Compared with healthy office workers, unhealthy office workers experienced greater improvements in general (unhealthy SMD 2.76; 95% CI 1.63 to 3.89; healthy SMD 0.23; 95% CI -0.09 to 0.56) and physical (unhealthy SMD 0.38; 95% CI 0.17 to 0.58; healthy SMD -0.20; 95% CI -0.51 to 0.11) HRQOL. Unsupervised physical exercise significantly improved general and mental HRQOL, while directly supervised physical exercise significantly improved only general HRQOL. Although physical exercise, especially unsupervised physical exercise, should be encouraged to improve HRQOL in office workers, detailed recommendations could not be made because of the diverse exercise types with different intensities. Therefore, further studies are needed to determine the optimal exercise for office workers with different health conditions.

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