A qualitative study of older adults' responses to sitting-time questions: do we get the information we want?

BMC Public Health

Research Article

Kristiann C Heesch¹  Wendy J Brown²  Jannique GZ van Uffelen²  Robert L Hill² 

[1] Queensland University of Technology, Institute of Health & Biomedical, Innovation and the School of Public Health, 4059, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia;The University of Queensland, School of Human Movement Studies, 4072, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia;

关键词: Physical Activity;    Sedentary Behavior;    Sedentary Time;    International Physical Activity Questionnaire;    Cognitive Interview;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2458-11-458

 received in 2011-03-08, accepted in 2011-06-10,  发布年份 2011

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundIn the last decade, there has been increasing interest in the health effects of sedentary behavior, which is often assessed using self-report sitting-time questions. The aim of this qualitative study was to document older adults' understanding of sitting-time questions from the International Physical Activity (PA) Questionnaire (IPAQ) and the PA Scale for the Elderly (PASE).MethodsAustralian community-dwelling adults aged 65+ years answered the IPAQ and PASE sitting questions in face-to-face semi-structured interviews. IPAQ uses one open-ended question to assess sitting on a weekday in the last 7 days 'at work, at home, while doing coursework and during leisure time'; PASE uses a three-part closed question about daily leisure-time sitting in the last 7 days. Participants expressed their thoughts out loud while answering each question. They were then probed about their responses. Interviews were recorded, transcribed and coded into themes.ResultsMean age of the 28 male and 27 female participants was 73 years (range 65-89). The most frequently reported activity was watching TV. For both questionnaires, many participants had difficulties understanding what activities to report. Some had difficulty understanding what activities should be classified as 'leisure-time sitting'. Some assumed they were being asked to only report activities provided as examples. Most reported activities they normally do, rather than those performed on a day in the previous week. Participants used a variety of strategies to select 'a day' for which they reported their sitting activities and to calculate sitting time on that day. Therefore, many different ways of estimating sitting time were used. Participants had particular difficulty reporting their daily sitting-time when their schedules were not consistent across days. Some participants declared the IPAQ sitting question too difficult to answer.ConclusionThe accuracy of older adults' self-reported sitting time is questionable given the challenges they have in answering sitting-time questions. Their responses to sitting-time questions may be more accurate if our recommendations for clarifying the sitting domains, providing examples relevant to older adults and suggesting strategies for formulating responses are incorporated. Future quantitative studies should include objective criterion measures to assess validity and reliability of these questions.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© van Uffelen et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2011. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.