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Self-Reported Physical Activity in Hispanic Adults Living With HIV: Comparison With Accelerometer and Pedometer

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jana.2008.04.003Get rights and content

Limited information is available regarding physical activity (PA) and its assessment in Hispanics living with HIV. This study compared self-reported PA using the International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ) with objectively measured PA using the ActiGraph accelerometer and DigiWalker pedometer in 58 Hispanic adults with HIV. IPAQ was administered before and after a 7-day period in which subjects wore the ActiGraph and DigiWalker. PA classification was based on ≥ 150 min/wk (IPAQ, ActiGraph) and ≥ 10,000 steps/day (DigiWalker). IPAQ-PA was higher than ActiGraph-PA (423 ± 298 vs. 165 ± 134 min/wk, respectively) (p < .01). There was a mismatch in PA classification with the IPAQ, ActiGraph, and DigiWalker (active = 81%, 54%, and 17%, respectively). Hispanics with HIV highly overestimated self-reported PA. Nurse scientists and other investigators must consider accelerometers or pedometers to assess PA in this population.

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Methods

A total of 58 Hispanic adults living with HIV (35 men, 23 women) were recruited from the AIDS Clinical Trials Unit at the University of Puerto Rico Medical Sciences Campus (UPR-MSC), and La Perla de Gran Precio community-based program in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The study protocol was approved by the institutional review board and the institutional privacy committee of the UPR-MSC. Staff at both recruitment sites approached the 58 potential participants and all agreed to participate in the study.

Participant Characteristics

Participants were volunteers from two clinical settings who met study inclusion criteria. Descriptive characteristics are presented in Table 1. A total of 60% of the participants were men. As expected, men had a lower body mass index and were taller than the women. Also, more men than women classified their general health as good or excellent, and more women than men reported suffering from other chronic diseases. Other chronic diseases included diabetes, asthma, and hepatitis C. The average

Discussion

The two most important results in this study were the high overestimation of self-reported PA and the significant mismatch between self-reported and objective measured PA in the group of Hispanics living with HIV. This highlights the need for nurse scientists and others to evaluate the psychometrics of activity questionnaires before their application with different population groups, particularly people living with chronic diseases. Even when the IPAQ had an acceptable reliability estimate and

Conclusion

In summary, compared with previous reports on healthy adults, Hispanic participants living with HIV in this study had lower levels of PA as recorded by the ActiGraph and higher overestimation of their activity levels using the IPAQ. The mismatch between the IPAQ and ActiGraph suggests that different types of questions and/or different cutoff points must be developed for future PA studies with chronic disease populations, particularly with Hispanic adults living with HIV. The correlation between

Acknowledgments

The authors thank the staff of the AIDS Clinical Trial Unit at the University of Puerto Rico, Medical Sciences Campus, and the staff at the La Perla de Gran Precio community-based program in San Juan, Puerto Rico, for their support. This study was supported by Grant Number 5 R25 RR17589 from the National Center for Research Resources, a component of the National Institutes of Health, the University of Puerto Rico-Roswell Park Cancer Institute Partnership (NIH/NCI P20 CA096257), and National

Farah A. Ramírez-Marrero, PhD, MSc, FACSM, is professor at the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus, Department of Physical Education and Recreation and the University of Puerto Rico Medical Sciences Campus, Clinical Research Training Program

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    Farah A. Ramírez-Marrero, PhD, MSc, FACSM, is professor at the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus, Department of Physical Education and Recreation and the University of Puerto Rico Medical Sciences Campus, Clinical Research Training Program

    Anita M. Rivera-Brown, PhD, FACSM, is associate professor in the Department of Physical Medicine, Rehabilitation, and Sports Medicine, School of Medicine;

    Cruz Maria Nazario, PhD, is professor in the Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, Graduate School of Public Idealth; and

    José F. Rodríguez-Orengo, PhD, is professor in the Department of Biochemistry School of Medicine, University of Puerto Rico, Medical Sciences Campus

    Ellen Smit, PhD, is an associate professor at Portland State University School of Community Health

    Barbara A. Smith, PhD, RN, FACSM, FAAN, is associate dean for research and professor at the School of Nursing, University of Maryland at Baltimore

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