The effect of a Pender’s health promotion model-based educational intervention on physical activity in office staff

Abstract

Physical inactivity is a common health issue and also a behavioral risk factor for a wide spectrum of defects. This study was conducted to investigate the effect of a Pender’s health promotion model (HPM)-based educational intervention on physical activity of health insurance office staff in Iran. This quasi-experimental study was conducted on 130 office staff of the Health Insurance Office of the province under purpose. Participants were selected by convenience sampling according to inclusion criteria and then randomly assigned to two groups of 65 each, namely, experimental and control. Practical skills training sessions were held based on Pender’s HPM model (three sessions; each session 30 min; with 4 days intervals only for the experimental group). Data collection instrument was a questionnaire consisting of three sections, demographic information, International Physical Activity Questionnaire, and a researcher-developed Pender’s HPM constructs questionnaire, that was administered before and 2 months after intervention completion. Changes in HPM constructs and the physical activity levels in the two groups were analyzed after the intervention using Wilcoxon and the Mann–Whitney tests in SPSS 16. The level of significance (P) was considered < 0.05. Mean scores of physical activities in the experimental and control groups were 4402.3 ± 3470.6 and 4111 ± 3351.4 METs × min/week before intervention and 4752 ± 4137.6 and 4062.5 ± 3287.2 METs × min/week after intervention, respectively. In the experimental group, mean scores of physical activity and Pender’s HPM constructs changed significantly after intervention (P < 0.001). Pender’s HPM-based education can help enhance physical activity. It is therefore recommended to use an HPM-based education program with the office staff to increase the benefits of physical activity and decrease the complications of sedentary jobs among them.