Reliability and Validity of Slovenian Versions of IPAQ-SF, GPAQ, and EHIS-PAQ for Assessing Physical Activity and Sedentarism of Adults

Kaja Meh, Vedrana Sember, Saša Đurić, Henri Vähä-Ypyä, Paulo Rocha and Gregor Jurak
Additional contact information
Kaja Meh: Faculty of Sports, University of Ljubljana, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia
Vedrana Sember: Faculty of Sports, University of Ljubljana, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia
Saša Đurić: Liberal Arts Department, General Education, American University of the Middle East, Egaila 54200, Kuwait
Henri Vähä-Ypyä: UKK-Institute, 33500 Tampere, Finland
Paulo Rocha: Portuguese Institute of Sport and Youth, 1250-190 Lisbon, Portugal
Gregor Jurak: Faculty of Sports, University of Ljubljana, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 19, issue 1, 1-15

Abstract: Health policies rely on physical activity (PA) and sedentary behavior data collected through PA questionnaires (PAQs). Validity of international PAQs varies among countries. Therefore, it is important to know the validity of the national versions of the PAQs to properly evaluate the results. We conducted a validation study of the Slovenian versions of the International PAQ Short Form (IPAQ-SF), the Global PAQ (GPAQ), and the PAQ used in the European Health Interview Survey (EHIS-PAQ) on 306 healthy adults. The most valid and reliable constructs in all tested were sedentary behavior and vigorous PA (VPA), however the criterion validity of these constructs was low (Spearman’s ρ 0.38–0.45 for sedentary behavior and 0.34–0.42 for VPA). Moderate to vigorous PA (MVPA) had low validity (0.26–0.29) despite being used as a standard measure of PA behavior. Participants over-reported MVPA for 17 to 156 min and underreported the sedentary behavior for more than two hours. The test-retest study found high reliability for sedentary behavior (0.69–0.81) and low to moderate reliability for PA behavior (0.42–0.76). The Slovenian versions of the observed PAQs are a useful tool for national PA surveillance, but for qualitative assessment of individual health-related PA behavior they should be combined with accelerometer-based devices.

Keywords: survey; questionnaire; self-report; accelerometer; measurement characteristics; sedentary behavior; lifestyle; public health (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/1/430/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/1/430/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2021:i:1:p:430-:d:715414

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().