Reliability and Validity of a Questionnaire for Physical Activity Assessment in South American Children and Adolescents: The SAYCARE Study

Abstract

Objective: The objective of this article is to test the reliability and validity of the new and innovative physical activity (PA) questionnaire. Methods: Subsamples from the South American Youth/Child Cardiovascular and Environment Study (SAYCARE) study were included to examine its reliability (children: n 5 161; adolescents: n 5 177) and validity (children: n 5 82; adolescents: n 5 60). The questionnaire consists of three dimensions of PA (leisure, active commuting, and school) performed during the last week. To assess its validity, the subjects wore accelerometers for at least 3 days and 8 h/d (at least one weekend day). The reliability was analyzed by correlation coefficients. In addition, Bland-Altman analysis and a multilevel regression were applied to estimate the measurement bias, limits of agreement, and influence of contextual variables. Results: In children, the questionnaire showed consistent reliability (q 5 0.56) and moderate validity (q 5 0.46), and the contextual variable variance explained 43.0% with 222.9 min/d bias. In adolescents, the reliability was higher (q 5 0.76) and the validity was almost excellent (q 5 0.88), with 66.7% of the variance explained by city level with 16.0 min/d PA bias.

Gender differences in physical activity and sedentary behavior: Results from over 200,000 Latin-American children and adolescents

“…An improved methodology common for all the Latin-American countries would be essential to study rigorously the differences in meeting PA and SB guidelines among children and adolescents and perform international comparisons, in particular to take into account the new WHO PA and SB guidelines [ 1 ]. Currently, to our knowledge, the only multi-country tool validated in some South-American countries is SAYCARE [ 38 , 39 ].…”

Is Self-Reported Physical Fitness Useful for Estimating Fitness Levels in Children and Adolescents? A Reliability and Validity Study

“…Due to the nature of the very specific IFIS-LP issues, the answers are less likely to overlap or confuse, thus reducing memory bias and increasing the chance of bias of the desired behavior. Most likely, physical fitness questionnaires [47,48,49,50] have better results than physical activity questionnaires because it is easier to have a subjective perception of the physical valences required to perform physical effort than to report behaviors related to physical activity [51]. The IFIS was designed with the principle that the human brain may be more accurate in classification than in quantification [12], so it is easier to classify people into categories (e.g., normal or overweight) than to estimate their current weight.…”

An Updated Systematic Review of Childhood Physical Activity Questionnaires

“…T1 girls r 0.37, boys r 0.04; vs. MVPA IPAQ-SF T1 girls r 0.76, boys r 0.70 Fair vs. acc. Poor vs. questionnaire Level 1: – The South American Youth/Child Cardiovascular and Environment Study (SAYCARE) Physical Activity (PA) questionnaire [ 66 ] n = 60 Age: 11–18 years Sex: 56% girls Acc. (Actigraph) (cut-points: LPA 101–1999 cpm; MPA 2000–4999 cpm; VPA ≥ 4000 cpm) MPA vs. acc.…”

“…of sport teams or after school PA in school: ICC 0.74 No. of sport teams or after school PA out-of-school: ICC 0.89 Leisure time PA: past 7 days ICC 0.70, usual week ICC 0.79, average ICC 0.76 Walking or cycling to/from destinations: Indoor or exercise facility 0.61, friend’s or relative’s house 0.48, outdoor recreation place 0.47, food store or restaurant/cafe 0.82, other retail stores 0.51, non-school social or educational activities 0.51, public transportation stop 0.71, total score walking or cycling times/week 0.59 Walk to school: ICC 0.89 Walk from school: ICC 0.76 Fair ± Physical Activity and Lifestyle Questionnaire (PALQ) (Greek version) [ 33 ] n = 21 Age: 13.7 ± 0.8 years Sex: 43% girls (age and sex total sample n = 40) 2 weeks PALQ: ICC 0.52, typical error 2.39, MD (LoA) − 1.88 ± 6.82 Fair – The South American Youth/Child Cardiovascular and Environment Study (SAYCARE) Physical Activity (PA) questionnaire [ 66 ] n = 177 Age: 11–18 years Sex: 58% girls 15 days Active commuting: SCC 0.51 PA at school: SCC 0.63 PA at leisure time: SCC 0.68 MPA: SCC 0.36 VPA: SCC 0.93 Weekly total MVPA: SCC 0.60 % of agreement with current PA guidelines ≥ 60 min/day: κ 0.56 Fair – Self-administered questionnaire on children’s travel to school [ 39 ] n = 61 (study 1), n = 68 (study 2) Age: 11–14 years Sex: percentage of girls unknown 1 week After school exercise no. of days: study 1, kappa 0.07; study 2, kappa 0.01 After school exercise no.…”