Within-person associations of accelerometer-assessed physical activity with time-varying determinants: a time-based EMA study in older adults
ABSTRACT
Background:
Health behavior change interventions often do not focus on contextual and time-varying determinants, which might limit their effectiveness. However, before dynamic tailoring of interventions can be developed, one should know which time-dependent determinants are associated with physical activity (PA) and how strong these associations are. In the research field of PA some research has been done to examine these associations, but research in older adults is limited.
Objective:
Therefore, the aim of the current study was to examine predictive within-person associations between multiple determinants of the COM-B framework assessed using ecological momentary assessment (EMA), and accelerometer assessed light physical activity (LPA), moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA), and total physical activity (TPA) performed in the 15, 30, 60 and 120 minutes after the EMA trigger.
Methods:
Observational data were collected in 64 older adults (56.3% men; mean age 72.1 ± 5.6 years). Participants were asked to answer a time-based EMA questionnaire 6 times per day which assessed emotions (i.e., relaxation, satisfaction, irritation, feeling down), the physical complaint fatigue, intention, and self-efficacy. An Axivity AX3 was worn to capture participants’ PA. Multilevel regressions analyses in R were performed to examine these within-person associations.
Results:
Satisfaction, irritation, feeling down, intention and self-efficacy were positively associated with subsequent LPA and/or MVPA in the 15, 30 and 60 minutes after the trigger, while relaxation and fatigue were negatively associated. Similar results were obtained for the 120 minutes time frames, with the only exception that negative associations were also found for the emotion satisfaction.
Conclusions:
Multiple associations were found in the current study. This knowledge in combination with the time-dependency of the determinants is valuable information for future interventions, so that suggestions to be active can be provided when the older adult is most receptive.
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