Screening Physical Activity in Family Practice: Validity of the Spanish Version of a Brief Physical Activity Questionnaire

摘要

The use of brief screening tools to identify inactive patients is essential to improve the efficiencyof primary care-based physical activity (PA) programs. However, the current employmentof short PA questionnaires within the Spanish primary care pathway is unclear. Thisstudy evaluated the validity of the Spanish version of a Brief Physical Activity AssessmentTool (SBPAAT).MethodsA validation study was carried out within the EVIDENT project. A convenience sample ofpatients (n = 1,184; age 58.9±13.7 years; 60.5% female) completed the SBPAAT and the7-day Physical Activity Recall (7DPAR) and, in addition, wore an accelerometer (ActiGraphGT3X) for seven consecutive days. Validity was evaluated by measuring agreement,Kappa correlation coefficients, sensitivity and specificity in achieving current PA recommendationswith the 7DPAR. Pearson correlation coefficients with the number of daily minutesengaged in moderate and vigorous intensity PA according to the accelerometer were alsoassessed. Comparison with accelerometer counts, daily minutes engaged in sedentary,light, moderate, and vigorous intensity PA, total daily kilocalories, and total PA and ltime expenditure (METs-hour-week) between the sufficiently and insufficiently activegroups identified by SBPAAT were reported.ResultsThe SBPAAT identified 41.3%sufficiently active (n = 489) and 58.7% insufficiently active(n = 695) patients; it showed moderate validity (k = 0.454, 95% CI: 0.402–0.505) and aspecificity and sensitivity of 74.3%and 74.6%, respectively. Validity was fair for identifyingdaily minutes engaged in moderate (r = 0.215, 95% CI:0.156 to 0.272) and vigorous PA(r = 0.282, 95% CI:0.165 to 0.391). Insufficiently active patients according to the SBPAATsignificantly reported fewer counts/minute (-22%), fewer minutes/day of moderate (-11.38)and vigorous PA (-2.69), spent fewer total kilocalories/day (-753), and reported a lowerenergy cost (METs-hour-week) of physical activities globally (-26.82) and during leisuretime (-19.62).ConclusionsThe SBPAAT is a valid tool to identify Spanish-speaking patients who are insufficientlyactive to achieve health benefits.