It appears that there would be minimal benefit from further descriptive research using the BARRIERS Scale. Research is needed to investigate whether relationships exist between perceptions of barriers to nurses' use of research and the use evidence-based practice.

This study was part of a multi-site project carried out with seven universities throughout the United States to identify cultural, environmental, and policy determinants of physical activity in ethnic minority women aged 20 to 50 years. Following an extensive literature review, nine core research questions were created to examine potential barriers to physical activity as well as enabling factors. Methods and findings presented are from six focus groups of low-income, urban African American women. These focus groups were held at each of two health centers serving communities in Chicago, Illinois, that are predominantly African American and low income and have households usually headed by women. Forty-eight women participated, with 5 to 11 in each group. Most (85%) were unmarried, 40% had less than a high school education, and 33% were neither employed nor attending school. Findings reflected the influence of a culture of poverty and the importance of environmental safety and community support. The findings will be used to inform the development of community-based exercise interventions and policies that are culturally and socially sensitive to the needs of low-income, urban African American women.

Motivation for exercise is a theoretically and empirically significant concept that is variously measured in the literature. This paper reviews recent studies that measure motivation for exercise. The findings from 22 studies that met inclusion criteria demonstrate that there is a deficiency in the published literature regarding the establishment of the psychometric properties of reliability and validity. Only five of the 22 studies report both reliability and validity measures on an instrument. An improvement in the reporting of psychometric measures and the utilization of established tools will advance the research and science of exercise motivation. The improvement in study psychometrics has implications for practical application in the field of exercise and the more general category of health promotion.

The purpose of this study was to describe and examine the lifestyle physical activity behaviors (household, leisure, occupational) of older rural women. Background characteristics included demographics, environment, social support, and health. Intrapersonal characteristics included motivation and self-efficacy. The majority of the women's energy expenditure was from the household dimension. Social support was positively associated with household activities. A higher level of leisure physical activity was associated with living within the two small cities and reporting lower levels of health and lower motivation. This research highlights the importance of household physical activity and the contribution of social support for household physical activity, both of which may be important in developing interventions to promote physical activity in older rural women. Keywords physical activity; women; rural Physical activity rates are lower for women than men, and these rates decline further with age (Caspersen, Pereira, & Curran, 2000). Older rural women, defined as ≥ 65 years, are less physically active than older urban women (Scharff, Homan, Kreuter, & Brennan, 1999). Large numbers of older women are clustered in predominantly rural communities, where the mean age is increasing more rapidly than in urban areas (U.S. Department of Agriculture [USDA], 2005). Older rural-dwelling women often have limited financial resources, endure social isolation, and have fewer community health resources than do older urban-dwelling women (Carruth & Logan, 2002). These factors may contribute to their lower rates of physical activity when compared to their urban counterparts (Wilcox, Castro, King, Housemann, & Brownson, 2000). The overall purpose of this study was to describe and examine factors related to the lifestyle physical activity behaviors (household, leisure, and occupational) of older women living in a non-metropolitan rural county. Total physical activity for women includes behaviors within the household, leisure, and occupational domains and is referred to as lifestyle physical activity (Wilbur, Holm, & Dan, 1993). Much of the existing physical activity research on older women is focused on leisure time physical activity (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services [USDHHS], 1996). When physical activity is defined narrowly as structured leisure time behaviors only, it may be underestimated, and opportunities to enhance physical activity may be overlooked (King, 1994). For example, in a study of Dutch elders, Parkatti, Deeg, Bosscher, and Launer (1998) found that older women were more active than men when household activities were included in physical activity measurement. Thus, to create an evidence base for developing physical activity interventions for women living in predominantly rural areas, one must consider the full range of lifestyle activities as well as factors that influence their performance (Plonczynski, 2003).The Cox interaction model of client health behavior (Cox, 1982(Cox, , 2003) is a middle...