Department
of Sport Sciences
PA & health
• There appears to be a linear relation between physical activity and health status (Warburton, Nicol & Bredin, 2006)
PA promotion
• Clinicians as physiotherapists are at the front line of PA promotion and should be aware about the foundations of their actions in order to act effectively (Verhagen & Engbers, 2008)
Physiotherapist as
PA promotor
• Even if widely explored in literature, knowledge of PA concept and its positive impact on health are not easily transferred to local actors of PA promotion (USDHHS, 1996)
Objective
• This study aimed to analyze the knowledge and representations of physiotherapists about the PA key concepts
Background and goals of the study
PA definition ? PA dimensions ? Effective PA signs ? PA recommendations ?
Literature-based answer
(1) “Any bodily movement ...
(2) produced by skeletal muscles...
(3) that substantially increases energy expenditure... (4) over the resting level”
(Bouchard & Shephard 1994)
5 dimensions of physical activity (Sallis & al., 2006): • Sport • Leisure time • Occupational activities • Active transport • Household activities • Heart rate • Respiratory rate • Sweating
• Benefits encoutered after 10
minutes of practicing PA (DeBusk, 1990)
Physiotherapists’ answer
Frequency of each item citation (n = 130):
1 : 49.2 % 2 : 13 % 3 : 26.5 % 4 : 8.1 % Most of the subjects had a partial (68.7%) or a
full unawareness (30.3%) of the PA official definition Number of items proposed (%) :
17 % of the subjects identified «sport» as the exclusive type of PA
Only 1.6 % of the subjects mentioned the 5 dimensions of PA
Subjects ratio mentioning each category (%) :
23,8 % of the physiotherapists
mentioned the 3 physical signs of effective PA :
Effective PA practice was defined by a majority of physiotherapists as referring to a cardio-vascular adaptation (62.7%)
56% of them proposed 30 to 60 minutes periods of PA
Physiotherapists had a better knowledge of PA recommendations about adults
(53%) rather than about children (41.6%)
Scores (0 to 12) for knowledge about the recommendations (%): 1,1 47,6 18,4 2,7 1,1 0 10 20 30 40 50
0 item 1 item 2 items 3 items 4 items
95,1 24,9 10,3 68,1 24,3 0 20 40 60 80 100 Signs N % 0 39 21,1 1 42 22,7 2 60 32,4 3 44 23,8 Debourdeauhuij
& Bizel (2008) Adults Children
Type Swimming, fast walking, gardening,… Diversification + strenghtening & stretching 2x/week
Frequency Each day Each day
Duration 30 minutes 60 minutes
Intensity Moderate Moderate
28,6 27,6 28,6 15,1 27 20 40 13
Very low (score≤3) Low (3<score≤6) Acceptable (6<score≤9) Good (>9)
Adult Youth
Results
Most of the physiotherapists are unaware of the PA official comprehensive definition
These findings highlight the difficulty faced by practitioners to verbalize this concept
If health professionals are not able to explain what is PA, general population will certainly not
It seems crucial to remind to the practitioners the “official” definition and underline its implications for intervention with their patients
Discussion
and further
work
Sport is considered as THE physical activity
Important misrepresentation
Transport activities are rightly recognized
Potential outcome of promotion campaigns ?
Occupational activities appear last even if literature has shown its positive effects (Engbers et al, 2005)
Need to promote them
Moderate effort recommended for health is characterized by a feeling of heat and rapid acceleration of respiration and heart rate (Pate et al., 1995)
It therefore seems important for the physical therapist to inform their patients about these signs in order to help them to reach the right level of PA when exercising
One subject out of six gets a good score
The current lack of knowledge of primary recommendations should not facilitate the process of PA promotion
This finding underlines that it is necessary to put an emphasis on the physiotherapists’ education
Ask references to the first author (alexandre.mouton@ulg.ac.be) 2011 AIESEP World Congress (Limerick, Ireland)
Alexandre MOUTON Benoit MUGNIER Marc CLOES
Methods
Study sample: 185 physiotherapists
Variables N Mean ± SD or %
Age (years) 185 40 ± 12
Seniority (years) 185 16 ± 12
Gender M 102 55.1
F 83 44.9
Principal Workplace Private practice 95 51.3
Hospital 69 37.3
Nursing home 21 11.4
Pen-and-Paper questionaire (n = 22) Online questionaire (n = 163) (SurveyMonkey®)
25 open-ended, multiple choice or Likert scale questions
Reliability : 84% inter-analyst 90% intra-analyst Data processing by Statistica®
« Snowball method »
