Abstract
ABSTRACTOBJECTIVE To evaluate if perceived occupational factors are associated with insufficient free-time physical activity in Brazilian public school teachers.METHODS The relationship between insufficient physical activity (< 150 minutes/week) and variables related to work was analyzed in 978 elementary and high school teachers calculating the prevalence ratio (PR) and 95% confidence interval (95%CI) in Poisson regression models, adjusted for sociodemographic and health variables.RESULTS The prevalence of insufficient physical activity was 71.9%, and this condition was associated independently with the perception of bad or regular balance between personal and professional life (PR = 1.09; 95%CI 1.01–1.18), perception that standing time affects the work (PR = 1.16; 95%CI 1.01–1.34), low or very low perception of current ability for the physical requirements of work (PR = 1.21; 95%CI 1.08–1.35), and temporary employment contract (PR = 1.13; 95%CI 1.03–1.25). The teaching of physical education was associated with lower prevalence of insufficient physical activity (PR = 0.78; 95%CI 0.64–0.95).CONCLUSIONS The perception of adverse working conditions is associated with increased prevalence of insufficient physical activity in teachers and should be considered for the promotion of physical activity in this population.
Highlights
Studies conducted in different regions of the world have pointed out that occupational factors may affect the health status of teachers[1,2,17,21]
The perception of adverse working conditions is associated with increased prevalence of insufficient physical activity in teachers and should be considered for the promotion of physical activity in this population
We aim to examine the hypothesis that some occupational factors are associated with difficulties to perform free-time physical activity, which can contribute to both broaden the scientific knowledge on this issue and to subsidize the planning of more effective interventions to fight the low adherence to this behavior among these professionals
Summary
Studies conducted in different regions of the world have pointed out that occupational factors may affect the health status of teachers[1,2,17,21]. In this sense, such characteristics may negatively affect the practice of physical activity, especially when teachers need to use their free-time to perform work tasks. The study has been carried out with teachers from Belgium and free-time physical activity has been associated with better job satisfaction and lower levels of occupational stress and absenteeism[5]. The researchers have addressed physical activity as an independent variable and they have not analyzed specific issues of the teaching work that could affect the practice of free-time physical activity, such as total teaching time, type of employment contract, indicators of physical effort at work, among others
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