A systematic review of evaluation studies on physical activity questionnaires for children and adolescents

Abstract

Objective: To systematically review the structure and content of physical activity questionnaires for children and adolescents and assess the overall validity and reliability of the existing international questionnaires in the last 10 years. Methods: Search terms, including"Physical Activity" AND "Questionnaire" OR "Self-report" OR "Recall" AND "Child*" OR "Adolescen*" OR "Youth" AND 'Valid*' OR "Reliab*" OR "Reproducib*" OR "Sensitiv*" OR "Responsiv*", were searched for evaluation studies on physical activity questionnaires for children and adolescents in PubMed/Medline and EMBASE database from January 2008 to December 2018. The quality of eligible literature was assessed by using the consensus-based standards for the selection of health status measurement instruments (COSMIN). Results: A total of 37 articles containing 36 physical activity questionnaires in 7 989 participants were included. There were 68 studies on the assessment of the validity and reliability of assorted physical activity questionnaires, 45 studies for validity and 23 for reliability. The median Spearman correlation coefficients in validity studies were 0.28 for moderate-to-vigorous intensity physical activity, 0.15 for moderate-intensity physical activity, 0.27 for vigorous-intensity physical activity and 0.31 for physical activity energy expenditure. The median reliability correlation coefficients were 0.32 for sedentary behaviors, 0.53 for light-intensity physical activity, 0.80 for moderate-to-vigorous intensity physical activity, 0.54 for moderate-intensity physical activity and 0.69 for vigorous-intensity physical activity. Conclusion: The reliability of physical activity questionnaires measured moderate-to-vigorous intensity physical activity for children and adolescents is acceptable, but the validity is low.