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Do interventions to promote walking in groups increase physical activity? A meta-analysis

OBJECTIVE: Walking groups are increasingly being set up but little is known about their efficacy in promoting physical activity. The present study aims to assess the efficacy of interventions to promote walking in groups to promoting physical activity within adults, and to explore potential moderato...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Kassavou, Aikaterini, Turner, Andrew, French, David P
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2013
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3585890/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23388115
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1479-5868-10-18
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author Kassavou, Aikaterini
Turner, Andrew
French, David P
author_facet Kassavou, Aikaterini
Turner, Andrew
French, David P
author_sort Kassavou, Aikaterini
collection PubMed
description OBJECTIVE: Walking groups are increasingly being set up but little is known about their efficacy in promoting physical activity. The present study aims to assess the efficacy of interventions to promote walking in groups to promoting physical activity within adults, and to explore potential moderators of this efficacy. METHOD: Systematic literature review searches were conducted using multiple databases. A random effect model was used for the meta-analysis, with sensitivity analysis. RESULTS: The effect of the interventions (19 studies, 4 572 participants) on physical activity was of medium size (d = 0.52), statistically significant (95%CI 0.32 to 0.71, p < 0.0001), and with large fail-safe of N = 753. Moderator analyses showed that lower quality studies had larger effect sizes than higher quality studies, studies reporting outcomes over six months had larger effect sizes than studies reporting outcomes up to six months, studies that targeted both genders had higher effect sizes than studies that targeted only women, studies that targeted older adults had larger effect sizes than studies that targeted younger adults. No significant differences were found between studies delivered by professionals and those delivered by lay people. CONCLUSION: Interventions to promote walking in groups are efficacious at increasing physical activity. Despite low homogeneity of results, and limitations (e.g. small number of studies using objective measures of physical activity, publication bias), which might have influence the findings, the large fail-safe N suggests these findings are robust. Possible explanations for heterogeneity between studies are discussed, and the need for more investigation of this is highlighted.
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spelling pubmed-35858902013-03-03 Do interventions to promote walking in groups increase physical activity? A meta-analysis Kassavou, Aikaterini Turner, Andrew French, David P Int J Behav Nutr Phys Act Review OBJECTIVE: Walking groups are increasingly being set up but little is known about their efficacy in promoting physical activity. The present study aims to assess the efficacy of interventions to promote walking in groups to promoting physical activity within adults, and to explore potential moderators of this efficacy. METHOD: Systematic literature review searches were conducted using multiple databases. A random effect model was used for the meta-analysis, with sensitivity analysis. RESULTS: The effect of the interventions (19 studies, 4 572 participants) on physical activity was of medium size (d = 0.52), statistically significant (95%CI 0.32 to 0.71, p < 0.0001), and with large fail-safe of N = 753. Moderator analyses showed that lower quality studies had larger effect sizes than higher quality studies, studies reporting outcomes over six months had larger effect sizes than studies reporting outcomes up to six months, studies that targeted both genders had higher effect sizes than studies that targeted only women, studies that targeted older adults had larger effect sizes than studies that targeted younger adults. No significant differences were found between studies delivered by professionals and those delivered by lay people. CONCLUSION: Interventions to promote walking in groups are efficacious at increasing physical activity. Despite low homogeneity of results, and limitations (e.g. small number of studies using objective measures of physical activity, publication bias), which might have influence the findings, the large fail-safe N suggests these findings are robust. Possible explanations for heterogeneity between studies are discussed, and the need for more investigation of this is highlighted. BioMed Central 2013-02-06 /pmc/articles/PMC3585890/ /pubmed/23388115 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1479-5868-10-18 Text en Copyright ©2013 Kassavou et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Review
Kassavou, Aikaterini
Turner, Andrew
French, David P
Do interventions to promote walking in groups increase physical activity? A meta-analysis
title Do interventions to promote walking in groups increase physical activity? A meta-analysis
title_full Do interventions to promote walking in groups increase physical activity? A meta-analysis
title_fullStr Do interventions to promote walking in groups increase physical activity? A meta-analysis
title_full_unstemmed Do interventions to promote walking in groups increase physical activity? A meta-analysis
title_short Do interventions to promote walking in groups increase physical activity? A meta-analysis
title_sort do interventions to promote walking in groups increase physical activity? a meta-analysis
topic Review
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3585890/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23388115
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1479-5868-10-18
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