Comparison of the Physical Activity Frequency Questionnaire (PAFQ) with accelerometry in a middle-aged and elderly population: The CoLaus study.

Verhoog, Sanne; Gubelmann, Cédric; Guessous, Idris; Bano, Arjola; Franco, Oscar H.; Marques-Vidal, Pedro (2019). Comparison of the Physical Activity Frequency Questionnaire (PAFQ) with accelerometry in a middle-aged and elderly population: The CoLaus study. Maturitas, 129, pp. 68-75. Elsevier 10.1016/j.maturitas.2019.08.004

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OBJECTIVE

The Physical Activity Frequency Questionnaire (PAFQ) has been used in several studies, but its validation dates from 1998. We compared the PAFQ with accelerometry data for measuring levels of physical activity (PA) in a middle-aged and elderly population.

DESIGN

Cross-sectional analysis was conducted with a sample of 1752 adults from the general population (50.7% female, age range 45.2-87.1 years) living in Switzerland. Participants completed the PAFQ and wore a wrist-worn accelerometer for 14 consecutive days. Spearman correlation, Lin's concordance coefficient and Bland-Altman plots were performed to compare PAFQ and accelerometry data.

RESULTS

Compared with the accelerometer, the PAFQ overestimated total, light, moderate and vigorous activity by a median [interquartile range] of 143 [34.5; 249], 72 [12; 141], 23 [-46; 100] and 13 [-1; 41] minutes/day, respectively, and underestimated sedentary behaviour by 123 [14; 238] minutes/day. Spearman's correlation coefficients ranged from 0.171 for vigorous PA and 0.387 for total PA and sedentary behaviour. Lin's concordance coefficients ranged from 0.044 for vigorous PA and 0.254 for moderate to vigorous PA. The difference between PAFQ and accelerometer results increased with increasing time spent at each activity level.

CONCLUSION

There is limited agreement between estimates of activity obtained by PAFQ and those obtained from accelerometers, suggesting that these tools measure activity differently. Although there is some degree of comparability, they should be considered as complementary tools to obtain comprehensive information on both individual and population activity levels.

Item Type:

Journal Article (Original Article)

Division/Institute:

04 Faculty of Medicine > Pre-clinic Human Medicine > Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine (ISPM)

UniBE Contributor:

Verhoog, Sanne, Bano, Arjola, Franco Duran, Oscar Horacio

Subjects:

600 Technology > 610 Medicine & health
300 Social sciences, sociology & anthropology > 360 Social problems & social services

ISSN:

0378-5122

Publisher:

Elsevier

Funders:

[4] Swiss National Science Foundation

Language:

English

Submitter:

Andrea Flükiger-Flückiger

Date Deposited:

28 Oct 2019 17:00

Last Modified:

05 Dec 2022 15:31

Publisher DOI:

10.1016/j.maturitas.2019.08.004

PubMed ID:

31547917

Uncontrolled Keywords:

Accelerometry Comparison Physical activity Questionnaire Sedentary behaviour Switzerland

BORIS DOI:

10.7892/boris.133586

URI:

https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/133586

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