Understanding perceived determinants of nurses’ eating and physical activity behaviour: a theory-informed qualitative interview study

Abstract

BackgroundUnhealthy eating and physical activity behaviours are common among nurses but little is known about determinants of eating and physical activity behaviour in this population. The present study used a theoretical framework which summarises the many possible determinants of different health behaviours (the Theoretical Domains Framework; TDF) to systematically explore the most salient determinants of unhealthy eating and physical activity behaviour in hospital-based nurses.MethodsSemi-structured qualitative interviews based on the TDF were conducted with nurses (n = 16) to explore factors that behavioural theories suggest may influence nurses’ eating and physical activity behaviour. Important determinants of the target behaviours were identified using both inductive coding (of categories emerging from the data) and deductive coding (of categories derived from the TDF) of the qualitative data.ResultsThirteen of the fourteen domains in the TDF were found to influence nurses’ eating and physical activity behaviour. Within these domains, important barriers to engaging in healthy eating and physical activity behaviour were shift work, fatigue, stress, beliefs about negative consequences, the behaviours of family and friends and lack of planning. Important factors reported to enable engagement with healthy eating and physical activity behaviours were beliefs about benefits, the use of self-monitoring strategies, support from work colleagues, confidence, shift work, awareness of useful guidelines and strategies, good mood, future holidays and receiving compliments.ConclusionsThis study used a theory-informed approach by applying the TDF to identify the key perceived determinants of nurses’ eating and physical activity behaviour. The findings suggest that future efforts to change nurses’ eating and physical activity behaviours should consider targeting a broad range of environmental, interpersonal and intrapersonal level factors, consistent with a socio-ecological perspective.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s40608-017-0154-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Eating habits and physical activity in working adults: a formative research

“…An important aspect to understand behaviours related to eating and physical activity is to identify if people have the knowledge and skills necessary to solve emotional problems and avoid these from affecting their food consumption (24). In the present study, it was found that workers recognize their emotions affect their eating habits, such as sadness and anger, which is similar to the findings reported by Power and colleagues (2017) who found that nurses' emotions affect their healthy habits (43). Particularly, some workers mentioned that when they feel stressed they skip meals.…”

“…In addition, participants have a positive perception related to physical activity and stress, since they acknowledged that it is a way to cope with their emotions. This was previously reported in a study that assessed eating and physical activity habits of nurses in Scotland, where it was identified that it was necessary to perform physical activity to manage the emotions derived from the death of patients, faced during their workday (43).…”

“…Finally, many of workers' behaviours in this study are performed expecting beneficial results for their health, based either on previous personal experiences or on observational learning. This was identified as well in the nurses' study previously mentioned, where the authors stated that nurses' goals were to improve their health and lose weight to "look good" (43). In addition, in the study of Norwegian engineers, it was essential for them to reduce the risk of non-communicable diseases, such as heart disease (38), as they related it to their occupation.…”

“…These behaviours are influenced by the interaction of the individual with the environment; for this reason, the SCT (24) was used to explain identified behaviours. To the best of our knowledge, there are no studies that have used all the constructs included in the present study for the understanding of eating behaviours and physical activity among workers; however, many of these studies do include some elements, such as self-efficacy, facilitators, cognitive-emotional factors, and others (38)(39)(40)(41)(42)(43).…”

“…In these studies, food faddism was the main problem affecting workers' healthy behaviours. However, regarding healthy foods, there are beliefs of both negative and positive effects (41,43).…”