Using a qualitative approach, this study explored attitudes, social support and barriers influencing long-term exercise adherence among five older patients with cardiac disease. Results found that patients understood and valued the benefits of health-related exercise, thereby demonstrating positive exercise attitudes. Some patients, however, were unsure of the recommended guidelines for producing exercise benefits. Introducing into exercise rehabilitation programmes strategies to assess knowledge of exercise guidelines may prove useful in confirming patients' understanding of these guidelines. Future research into the effectiveness of such strategies is recommended. Support from family, friends, and health professionals was found to be important in long-term exercise adherence. Some patients, however, were unhappy with the nature of support provided. While doctors encouraged patients to exercise, not all prescribed exercise because they knew little about the referral schemes available. This suggests the need to evaluate service provision to ensure that doctors are informed and active in prescribing exercise. Barriers, such as poor health and lower body limitations, did not prevent exercise per se, however, they did prevent patients exercising at levels recommended to protect against disease progression.

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Regular physical activity(PA) is recognised as playing a key role in promoting good health and tackling obesity. In many parts of the world there are concerns that people do not undertake sufficient PA, and that this problem is often worse for certain groups in the population. Low levels of PA amongst South Asian (SA) adults in the United Kingdom concern health policy makers and professionals because of the higher incidence of heart disease in this group than in the general population. Interventions have helped increase PA levels in white populations but have shown little success in engaging SA adults. One explanation is that interventions emphasise individual responsibility for health and pay relatively less attention to socio-cultural constraints on behaviour. Using qualitative, semi-structured interviews, we investigated influences on PA amongst 13 SA adults (aged 23-70) living in Halifax, Yorkshire, UK. The setting for our study was the participants' community gym. A key aim was to identify characteristics of the gym that influenced usage by the local SA population. We found the gym had successfully engaged SA adults in a programme of regular PA, and that a sense of its "embeddedness" in the local community was crucial to this. Implications for practice and research in health promotion and obesity prevention are discussed. ＜Key-words＞physical activity, health-related exercise, ethnic minority, qualitative, support for exercise n.king@hud.ac.uk (Nigel KING; UK) Asian J Human Services, 2017, 12:46-59.