Calibration of self-report tools for physical activity research: the Physical Activity Questionnaire (PAQ)

Pedro F Saint-Maurice, Gregory J Welk, Nicholas K Beyler, Roderick T Bartee, Kate A Heelan, Pedro F Saint-Maurice, Gregory J Welk, Nicholas K Beyler, Roderick T Bartee, Kate A Heelan

Abstract

Background: The utility of self-report measures of physical activity (PA) in youth can be greatly enhanced by calibrating self-report output against objectively measured PA data.This study demonstrates the potential of calibrating self-report output against objectively measured physical activity (PA) in youth by using a commonly used self-report tool called the Physical Activity Questionnaire (PAQ).

Methods: A total of 148 participants (grades 4 through 12) from 9 schools (during the 2009-2010 school year) wore an Actigraph accelerometer for 7 days and then completed the PAQ. Multiple linear regression modeling was used on 70% of the available sample to develop a calibration equation and this was cross validated on an independent sample of participants (30% of sample).

Results: A calibration model with age, gender, and PAQ scores explained 40% of the variance in values for the percentage of time in moderate-to-vigorous PA (%MVPA) measured from the accelerometers (%MVPA = 14.56 - (sex*0.98) - (0.84*age) + (1.01*PAQ)). When tested on an independent, hold-out sample, the model estimated %MVPA values that were highly correlated with the recorded accelerometer values (r = .63) and there was no significant difference between the estimated and recorded activity values (mean diff. = 25.3 ± 18.1 min; p = .17).

Conclusions: These results suggest that the calibrated PAQ may be a valid alternative tool to activity monitoring instruments for estimating %MVPA in groups of youth.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Relationship between accelerometer activity levels (recorded %MVPA) and predicted activity levels (predicted %MVPA) in the calibration sample. The solid line represents the best fit with the respective 95% confidence interval for the mean predicted values (dashed lines).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Relation between predicted and recorded minutes of MVPA in the cross-validation sample. The solid line represents the best fit line and the dashed lines represent the 95% confidence bounds about the best fit line.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Predicted minutes of MVPA (min/week) using different PAQ scores. Estimates were generated for three boys aged 9, 11, and 13 years. The final estimated score was divided by 100 and multiplied by 5,460 minutes as a measure of weekly activity. For each PAQ score unit increase there was an increase of 55.1 minutes of weekly MVPA.

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