Targeting physical activity promotion in general practice: Characteristics of inactive patients and willingness to change

Abstract

Background: Counselling in routine general practice to promote physical activity (PA) is advocated, but inadequate evidence is available to support this intervention, and its sustainable implementation over time is difficult.

How motivated are patients with type 2 diabetes to change their lifestyle? A survey among patients and healthcare professionals

“…We found however, that 47% of patients with T2DM reported insufficient physical activity. This is in line with previous studies [6,[22][23][24] that found that the level of activity was deficient in 51-82%. Oftedal et al [23] showed that patients with T2DM believed they had the ability to start exercise and diet management, but less than 10% exercised daily and 25% adhered to their diet daily.…”

“…These results are in agreement with studies that used the stages of change by Prochaska and DiClemente [30] to indicate patients' readiness to change their behavior. These studies found that among different groups of patients in primary care a large proportion (29-41%) was not motivated (precontemplators) to change their lifestyle [12,22]. In addition, we also found that a large group of patients with a BMI ≥ 25 (27%) were not motivated to change their lifestyle.…”

Comparison of two measuring instruments, B-pro and SphygmoCor system as reference, to evaluate central systolic blood pressure and radial augmentation index

“…Subjects aged 20-80 years were selected from the PEPAF project cohort. 16 The exclusion criteria were: known coronary or cerebrovascular atherosclerotic disease, heart failure, moderate or severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, walking-limiting musculoskeletal disease, advanced respiratory, renal or liver disease, severe mental diseases, treated oncological disease diagnosed in the past 5 years, pregnant women and terminal patients.…”

Public Policy Actions Needed to Promote Physical Activity

“…For example, a well-designed Spanish study used optimal research methods but only reported a small effect on physical activity [48]. The examples reported emanate from policy discussions and have the potential for wider reach into many primary care practices and into the community.…”