Measuring Accumulated Health-Related Benefits of Exercise Participation for Older Adults: The Vitality Plus Scale

Abstract

Improvements in sleep, energy level, mood, and generally feeling good appear to be the most noticeable benefits of exercising for many adults. These associations are reinforced by sustained exercise participation. Capturing these interrelated psychophysical constructs in a single, short measure will enable exercise researchers and instructors to measure incremental improvements previously reported only anecdotally.

Measuring the impact of increased exercise on quality of life in older adults: the UQQoL, a new instrument

“…In addition, each individual domain was moderately correlated with the summary scale indicating homogeneity (range 0.39-0.81) (Myers et al 1999;Streiner and Norman 2003) (Table 5 bottom row).…”

“…The questionnaires of interest were the SF-36 (Walters et al 2001), WHOQOL-100, WHOQOL-BREF and WHOQOL-OLD (Hawthorne 2003a, b), the Vitality Plus Scale (Myers et al 1999) and the Assessment of Quality of Life Instrument (AQoL) (Osborne 2003). Key areas examined were: items (questions), domains; number of and specificity per instrument, total questionnaire length, means of achieving reliability and validity, scoring mechanisms, and sensitivity to change in health and well-being.…”

“…To avoid confusion, the scale was worded in the same direction and repeated under each of the questions (Myers et al 1999). Each question was scored individually, the summation of which allowed the generation of an overall UQQoL summary score.…”

“…To examine the test-retest reliability of the instrument, the UQQoL was completed at baseline by a sample selected using simple randomisation (Schulz and Grimes 2002) of intervention participants (n = 30) (Myers et al 1999). These participants were mailed the questionnaire and requested to complete and return it at the first baseline testing session.…”

“…Moreover, positive personal testimonials indicate that following training individuals ''feel, sleep and move better'' (Myers et al 1999). Nevertheless, with the exception of investigations targeting functionally challenged seniors, studies questioning the benefits of increased exercise on QoL among older adults report little or no effect (Spirduso and Cronin 2001;de Vreede et al 2006).…”