Validity and precision of the International Physical Activity Questionnaire for climacteric women using computational intelligence techniques

Ronilson Ferreira Freitas, Josiane Santos Brant Rocha, Laercio Ives Santos, André Luiz de Carvalho Braule Pinto, Maria Helena Rodrigues Moreira, Fernanda Piana Santos Lima de Oliveira, Maria Suzana Marques, Geraldo Edson Souza Guerra Júnior, Kelma Dayana de Oliveira Silva Guerra, Andreia Maria Araújo Drummond, João Victor Villas Boas Spelta, Carolina Ananias Meira Trovão, Dorothéa Schmidt França, Lanuza Borges Oliveira, Antônio Prates Caldeira and Marcos Flávio Silveira Vasconcelos D’Angelo

PLOS ONE, 2021, vol. 16, issue 1, 1-18

Abstract: This study aimed to evaluate the validity and precision of the International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ) for climacteric women using computational intelligence techniques. The instrument was applied to 873 women aged between 40 and 65 years. Considering the proposal to regroup the set of data related to the level of physical activity of climacteric women using the IPAQ, we used 2 algorithms: Kohonen and k-means, and, to evaluate the validity of these clusters, 3 indexes were used: Silhouette, PBM and Dunn. The questionnaire was tested for validity (factor analysis) and precision (Cronbach's alpha). The Random Forests technique was used to assess the importance of the variables that make up the IPAQ. To classify these variables, we used 3 algorithms: Suport Vector Machine, Artificial Neural Network and Decision Tree. The results of the tests to evaluate the clusters suggested that what is recommended for IPAQ, when applied to climacteric women, is to categorize the results into two groups. The factor analysis resulted in three factors, with factor 1 being composed of variables 3 to 6; factor 2 for variables 7 and 8; and factor 3 for variables 1 and 2. Regarding the reliability estimate, the results of the standardized Cronbach's alpha test showed values between 0.63 to 0.85, being considered acceptable for the construction of the construct. In the test of importance of the variables that make up the instrument, the results showed that variables 1 and 8 presented a lesser degree of importance and by the analysis of Accuracy, Recall, Precision and area under the ROC curve, there was no variation when the results were analyzed with all IPAQ variables but variables 1 and 8. Through this analysis, we concluded that the IPAQ, short version, has adequate measurement properties for the investigated population.

Date: 2021
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pone00:0245240

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0245240

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