Abstract
BackgroundIn Portugal, there are several physical activity (PA) programmes for elderly people developed by the local government. The importance of these programmes has been increasing since the evidence has shown that this type of health promotion interventions may reduce the deleterious effects of the ageing process. However, no study has already identified the general characteristics of these programmes nor if they use any scheme to assess the quality of the service provided. A widely-used scheme is the EFQM Excellence Model, which will be in the core of our present work. Thus, the main aims of this preliminary study were 1) to identify the general characteristics of the PA programmes developed by the Portuguese Local Public Administration 2) to determine the extent of implementation of quality initiatives in these programmes.MethodsData were collected by an on-line questionnaire sent to all Continental Municipalities (n = 278). Categorical data were expressed as absolute counts and percentages. Continuous data were expressed as the mean and SD. An open-ended question was analysed using qualitative content analysis with QSR NVivo software. Associations between categorical variables were tested by the use of contingency tables and the calculation of chi-square tests. Significance level was set at p ≤ 0.05.ResultsResults showed: i) a total of 125 PA programmes were identified in the 18 districts of the Portugal mainland; ii) the main goal of the majority (95.2%) was the participants' health promotion; iii) different characteristics of the programmes were found according to different regions of the country; iv) certain characteristics of the programmes were associated to the existence of other features; v) only one PA programme developed quality initiatives.ConclusionsIn conclusion, although there are many PA programmes for elderly people spread throughout the country, aiming at improving the health of participants, the overwhelming majority does not adopt quality control initiatives. Considering that the quality of a service increases customer satisfaction, the continuous quality improvement of the PA programmes for elderly people should therefore be implemented since they can be useful and critical for elderly satisfaction and adherence.
Highlights
In Portugal, there are several physical activity (PA) programmes for elderly people developed by the local government
Continuous quality improvement of the PA programmes for elderly people can be crucial for elderly satisfaction and adherence, since one of the most important factors for customer satisfaction is providing a quality service [15,16,17]
Enhance quality of life for elderly people, age of the PA programme [39], characteristics of age groups and participants’ average age [40,41], number of activities offered in the PA programme [42,43], frequency of the programme [1,39], quality initiatives [20,44,45,46,47], name of the organization that delivers the programme, and identification details of the PA programme’s coordinator (Additional file 1)
Summary
In Portugal, there are several physical activity (PA) programmes for elderly people developed by the local government The importance of these programmes has been increasing since the evidence has shown that this type of health promotion interventions may reduce the deleterious effects of the ageing process. Evidence provided by several studies highlights that physical activity (PA) can play a major role on global health promotion [2,3], in large part by epidemiological evidence of the positive effect of an active lifestyle and involvement of individuals in PA programmes [4,5] These programmes are important to prevent and minimize the deleterious effects of the ageing process [6,7] and to improve quality of life [1,6,7,8]. Continuous quality improvement of the PA programmes for elderly people can be crucial for elderly satisfaction and adherence, since one of the most important factors for customer satisfaction is providing a quality service [15,16,17]
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