Abstract
BackgroundAdequate monitoring of older adults’ physical activity (PA) is essential to develop effective health promotion programs. The present study examined criterion validity and test-retest reliability of the long International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ-L), adapted for Belgian, community-dwelling older adults (65y and older).MethodsParticipants (n = 434) completed the last seven days version of IPAQ-L, modified for the Belgian population of community-dwelling older adults. This elderly-adapted version of IPAQ-L combined vigorous and moderate activities, and questions on gait speed and recreational cycling were added. Furthermore, participants wore an ActiGraph GT3X(+) accelerometer for at least five days. Criterion validity was determined by comparing self-reported weekly minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) and weekly minutes of total PA with accelerometer data, defined by two different cut points (Freedson vs. Copeland). To examine test-retest reliability, a subsample of 29 participants completed IPAQ-L for a second time within a ten day interval.ResultsIPAQ-L showed moderate criterion validity for measuring weekly minutes of MVPA and total PA (Spearman’s ρ range 0.33–0.40). However, plots on agreement between self-reported and accelerometer PA showed a systematic over-reporting of IPAQ-L for MVPA. In contrast, plots indicated that IPAQ-L under-estimated levels of total PA, however, this under-estimation of total PA was substantially lower than the observed over-reporting of MVPA. Test-retest reliability was moderate-to-good for work-related PA, domestic PA, MVPA and total PA (ICC range 0.52–0.81), but poorer for transportation and recreational PA (ICC 0.44 and 0.43, respectively).ConclusionsCriterion validity results suggest that IPAQ-L is more valid to measure older adults’ weekly minutes of total PA than weekly MVPA minutes. Moreover, results might imply that content validity of IPAQ-L can be improved if specific light-intensity PA items are incorporated into IPAQ-L. Test-retest reliability of IPAQ-L was moderate to good, except for weekly minutes of transportation and recreational PA, probably due to week-to-week variability of these behaviors.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12889-015-1785-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Highlights
Adequate monitoring of older adults’ physical activity (PA) is essential to develop effective health promotion programs
According to the 2011 Compendium of Physical Activities [27], items on light-intensity PA (LPA) could ask for home activities such as “dusting or polishing furniture” (~2.3 Metabolic Equivalents (METs)); “washing dishes, clearing dishes from the table” (~2.5 METs), or “cleaning, sweeping, light effort” (2.3 METs), as these activities are likely to be reported as moderate-intensity instead of light-intensity
In summary, validity results of the present study indicated that our adapted version of the International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ)-L should be considered with caution when estimates of older adults’ weekly minutes of moderate-to-vigorous PA (MVPA) are made, because participants tended to over-report their MVPA
Summary
Adequate monitoring of older adults’ physical activity (PA) is essential to develop effective health promotion programs. The International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ; www.ipaq.ki.se), available in a short (IPAQ-S) and a long (IPAQ-L) format, serves as the most commonly used tool to collect self-reported PA and was designed to make cross-national comparisons possible. Both formats can give an indication of total PA, but their main focus lies on measuring moderate-to-vigorous PA (MVPA). IPAQ-L assesses more detailed information on the PA context and is used to evaluate population PA levels Such contextspecific indices are needed to develop effective and context-specific intervention programs, as different correlates may exist for separate PA domains [7]
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