Evolution of automatic and controlled motivation toward physical activity and sedentary behaviors during pulmonary rehabilitation

Abstract

Recent studies have shown that pulmonary rehabilitation was partially ineffective to induce behavior change toward a more active lifestyle. Moreover little is known on the evolution of motivational determinants of Physical Activity (PA) and Sedentary Behaviors (SB) during rehabilitation. This study aimed to explore the evolution of controlled variables from the Theory of Planned Behavior (explicit attitudes, social norms, perceived behavioral control and intentions) and automatic processes (implicit attitudes) toward both behaviors. 142 patients (age=68±8,7 years, BMI=29.0±7.5 kg/m 2 ) admitted to a 5-week classical inpatient program were recruited. At the beginning and at the end of the program, controlled variables were measured by questionnaire and implicit attitudes through a computerized test (Implicit Association Test) which captures automatic preferences for categories of behaviors. Paired sample t-tests were performed for each variable. No significant changes of the controlled variables were found during the program either for PA or SB (p>0.05). However, implicit attitudes became significantly more in favor of PA [t (1, 116) =2.36, p=0.01, d=0.20]. In summary, classical rehabilitation is effective to change implicit attitudes toward PA, but exhibits no effect on controlled motivational variables. These results raise the question of the motivational determinants to study in rehabilitation context. Moreover, studies are needed to explore (1) the effect of well-designed specific motivational interventions during rehabilitation on these determinants and (2) their associations with PA maintenance and SB limitation after rehabilitation program.