A Cross-Sectional Study Exploring Motivators and Barriers to Physical Activity Participation Among Hospital Workers

Abstract

The workplace is an ideal setting to implement an effective health-promoting program. Insufficient information exists regarding the motivators and barriers to physical activity among working adults in Qatar. Therefore, this study aimed to identify the motivators and barriers to physical activity among adults in a healthcare setting. This cross-sectional study was conducted in an orthopaedic and sports medicine hospital. The participants were Qatari and non-Qatari adult staff (n = 100), who were recruited by word of mouth. They filled out self-administered questionnaires consisting of questions on age, gender, nationality, medical conditions, and the motivators (external, health/medical, and engagement) and barriers (personal, perceptual, and time constraint) to participating in physical activity. The characteristics of participants were: Age (<35 years, 50.5%; ≥35 years, 49.5%), Gender (men, 47.5%; women, 52.5%), Nationality (Qatari, 51%; non-Qatari, 49%), and health status (healthy, 53%; ≥1 medical condition, 47%). Common motivators particularly among workers <35 years, were the desire to maintain weight/shape (83.5%), participating in a sport (67.7%), and getting out of the house (64.2%). Common barriers to exercise were weather (84.9%) and family responsibilities (84.4%). Other barriers, particularly among women, were difficulty in maintaining a routine (82.1%) and finding physical activity uninteresting (52.7%). The most common motivator to physical activity was the desire to maintain weight/shape and the main perceived barrier was the usual hot weather conditions most part of the year). Employers may need to consider the influence of these and other factors to improve the success of a physical activity program implemented in a workplace.

Musculoskeletal Pain and Non-Classroom Teaching in Times of the COVID-19 Pandemic: Analysis of the Impact on Students from Two Spanish Universities

“…On the other hand, the women who carried out no PA during the lockdown were older than those who did PA frequently. This phenomenon could be down to several causes, such as the greater age, the students could most probably have parallel work tasks, which makes free time available to carry out PA more difficult [ 44 , 45 ]. However, the women who did no type of PA at all were older and lived with fewer people (it is probable that, in accordance with that found in other studies, older students prefer to live alone or with fewer people in the latter years of their academic studies, which would justify the few people with whom they live) than those who carried out strength exercises.…”

Workplace Physical Activity Within the Gulf Cooperation Council Region: A Scoping Review

“…Barriers to the interventions were also reported as limitations in four of the intervention studies (Tomar and Allen, 2016a;Al Saweer, Salehi and Al Tiho, 2017;Al-Mohannadi et al, 2019;Altwaijri et al, 2019). The two most commonly reported barriers to physical activity in workplace were "work demand" and "hot weather" as noted by a cross-sectional study (Al-Mohannadi et al, 2020) and also reported in the peer-reviewed brief report (Alkhatib, 2015). "Hot weather" was also a main limiting factor in two intervention studies (Al Saweer, Salehi and Al Tiho, 2017;Al-Mohannadi et al, 2019).…”

“…Qualitative findings in relation to motivators and barriers to exercise were reported in two of the non-intervention studies (Alkhatib, 2015;Al-Mohannadi et al, 2020). Barriers to the interventions were also reported as limitations in four of the intervention studies (Tomar and Allen, 2016a;Al Saweer, Salehi and Al Tiho, 2017;Al-Mohannadi et al, 2019;Altwaijri et al, 2019).…”

“…Not all included publications were intervention studies. The study by Al-Mohannadi et al (2020) was cross-sectional and aimed at identifying the motivators and barriers to PA participation among staff members in a hospital setting in Qatar using a survey. This also included details of a pilot study on a smaller subsample preceding the preliminary cross-sectional study to validate the reliability and consistency of the survey.…”

“…Three of the intervention studies reported facing similar cultural norms as limiting factors to their interventions (Tomar and Allen, 2016a;Al-Mohannadi et al, 2019;Altwaijri et al, 2019). The two non-intervention studies reported "maintaining weight" to be one of the main motivators for participating in workplace PA (Alkhatib, 2015;Al-Mohannadi et al, 2020).…”