Psychological Determinants of Physical Activity in Japanese Female Employees: Yuko NISHIDA, et al. Department of Public Health, Okayama University Graduate School of Medicine and Dentistry-To understand how psychological characteristics influence adoption and maintenance of physical activity/exercise, we conducted a crosssectional study among Japanese employees based upon the idea of stages of behavior modification. The study population consisted of 719 employees (male, 3 9 6 , f e m a l e , 3 2 3 ) f r o m f i v e m e d i u m -s i z e d manufacturing companies (50-200 employees) in Okayama Prefecture, Japan. The female response rate was 67.5% (n=218), among which 201 eligible female subjects (62.2%) were analyzed. The study questionnaire included demographic characteristics, physical activity/exercise measures, self-efficacy measures, and perceived benefit and barriers scales. Participants were asked to select the items that best described their current physical activity/exercise level from an 8-item questionnaire, and we converted their answers to the 5 stages of change according to a transtheoretical model of behavior change. Perceived benefit and barrier scales were classified into 7 factors (4 benefits and 3 barriers) by factor analyses. The relationship between psychological determinants and the stage of physical activity/exercise was examined by one-way analysis of variance. Only 10% of the subjects had moderate physical activity (in the action and maintenance stages) regularly. We found that selfefficacy, "weight control benefit", "physical barrier" and "time barrier" were psychological determinants of physical activity/exercise stages in female employees, and especially there was a consistent relationship between self-efficacy and the stage of physical activity/ exercise. Our data suggest that health education for Japanese female employees requires that health professionals should provide support for strengthening self-efficacy, show practical ways to increase physical activity in daily life, and provide broad and accurate information showing that physical activity/exercise have a good effect on health. (J Occup Health 2003; 45: 15-22)

To examine how psychological variables infl uence adoption of physical activity/exercise, we conducted a cross-sectional study among Japanese employees based upon the idea of transtheoretical model. The study population consisted of 719 employees (male, 396, female, 323). Response rate of the males was 77.8% (n=308), among which 273 eligible male subjects (68.9%) were analyzed. The study questionnaire included demographic characteristics, physical activity/exercise measures, self-effi cacy measures, and perceived benefi t and barriers scales. Perceived benefi t and barrier scales were classifi ed into 8 factors (5 benefi ts and 3 barriers) by factor analyses. We found that only 8% of the subjects were in the action and maintenance stages of physical activity/exercise, and 27% of them in these two stages engaged in vigorous-intensity exercise and 73% of them engaged in moderate-intensity physical activity. We found that self-effi cacy, "psychological benefi t", "social benefi t", "vital benefi t" and "physical barrier" were psychological correlates of physical activity/exercise stages in male employees, especially, there was a consistent relationship between self-effi cacy and the stage of physical activity/exercise. Our data suggest that health education for Japanese male employees should focus on strengthen self-effi cacy and psychological factor-matched interventions through either engaging vigorous-intensity exercise or increasing physical activity in daily life.

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