Abstract
Few studies have evaluated the reliability of a self-administered current and historical physical activity questionnaire (PAQ) among middle-aged and elderly women. We evaluated the reliability of a self-administered PAQ designed to assess total (24 h) current and historical physical activity at age 15, 30, and 50 years, which was completed by a subgroup of 303 women aged 56–75 years from the Swedish Mammography Cohort (SMC). Total physical activity covered occupational and household activity as well as walking/bicycling, exercise, and inactivity (sitting watching TV/reading). Reliabilities (1-year test–retest) of continuous activity measures in metabolic equivalents were evaluated using an intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC); classification consistency was evaluated using sensitivity and specificity statistics. The ICC for total current physical activity was 0.69; for specific types of activities the ICC ranged from 0.49 to 0.59; for historical physical activity, the reliabilities for total activity ranged from 0.75 for age 50 to 0.81 for age 30 years, being substantial for occupational activities (ICC = 0.73–0.75), and fair to moderate for inactivity (ICC = 0.31–0.60). These data indicate that the PAQ used in the SMC is a satisfactory and reproducible measure of current and historical physical activity, for total as well as for different types of activities.
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Abbreviations
- PAQ:
-
Physical activity questionnaire
- SMC:
-
Swedish Mammography Cohort
- ICC:
-
Intraclass correlation coefficient
- PA:
-
Physical activity
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Acknowledgments
This study was supported by Swedish Council for Working life and Social Research (FAS), the Swedish Research Council/Longitudinal studies, World Cancer Research Fund International, and the Swedish Foundation for International Cooperation in Research and Higher Education (STINT).
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Orsini, N., Bellocco, R., Bottai, M. et al. Reproducibility of the past year and historical self-administered total physical activity questionnaire among older women. Eur J Epidemiol 22, 363–368 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10654-006-9102-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10654-006-9102-1