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Exercise during pregnancy: knowledge and beliefs of medical practitioners in South Africa: a survey study

BACKGROUND: There is compelling evidence for the benefits of regular exercise during pregnancy, and medical practitioners (MPs) can play an important role in changing antenatal health behaviours. The purpose of this study was to assess the knowledge, attitudes and beliefs of South African MPs toward...

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Autores principales: Watson, Estelle D., Oddie, Brydie, Constantinou, Demitri
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2015
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4597379/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26446911
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12884-015-0690-1
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author Watson, Estelle D.
Oddie, Brydie
Constantinou, Demitri
author_facet Watson, Estelle D.
Oddie, Brydie
Constantinou, Demitri
author_sort Watson, Estelle D.
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: There is compelling evidence for the benefits of regular exercise during pregnancy, and medical practitioners (MPs) can play an important role in changing antenatal health behaviours. The purpose of this study was to assess the knowledge, attitudes and beliefs of South African MPs towards exercise during pregnancy. METHODS: A convenience sample of ninety-six MPs working in the private health care sector, including General Practitioners (n = 58), Obstetricians/Gynaecologists (n = 33) and other Specialists (n = 5), participated in this cross sectional, descriptive survey study. A 33-item questionnaire was distributed manually at medical practices and via email to an on-line survey tool. Descriptive statistics and frequency tables were calculated for all questions. Chi-squared and Fisher’s exact statistical tests were used to determine the differences in response by age, speciality and years of practice (p < 0.05). RESULTS: The majority of practitioners (98 %) believe that exercise during pregnancy is beneficial, and were knowledgeable on most of the expected benefits. Seventy-eight percent believed that providing exercise advice is an important part of prenatal care, however only 19 % provided informational pamphlets and few (24 %) referred to exercise specialists. A large majority (83 %) were unaware of the recommended exercise guidelines. Although age and years of practice played no role in this awareness, practitioners who focussed on obstetrics and gynaecology were more likely to be aware of the current guidelines, than those in general practice (p < 0.001). CONCLUSION: Although the MPs were largely positive towards exercise during pregnancy, their advice did not always align with the current guidelines. Therefore, better dissemination of available research is warranted, to bridge the gap between clinical knowledge and current recommendations for physical activity promotion. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12884-015-0690-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
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spelling pubmed-45973792015-10-08 Exercise during pregnancy: knowledge and beliefs of medical practitioners in South Africa: a survey study Watson, Estelle D. Oddie, Brydie Constantinou, Demitri BMC Pregnancy Childbirth Research Article BACKGROUND: There is compelling evidence for the benefits of regular exercise during pregnancy, and medical practitioners (MPs) can play an important role in changing antenatal health behaviours. The purpose of this study was to assess the knowledge, attitudes and beliefs of South African MPs towards exercise during pregnancy. METHODS: A convenience sample of ninety-six MPs working in the private health care sector, including General Practitioners (n = 58), Obstetricians/Gynaecologists (n = 33) and other Specialists (n = 5), participated in this cross sectional, descriptive survey study. A 33-item questionnaire was distributed manually at medical practices and via email to an on-line survey tool. Descriptive statistics and frequency tables were calculated for all questions. Chi-squared and Fisher’s exact statistical tests were used to determine the differences in response by age, speciality and years of practice (p < 0.05). RESULTS: The majority of practitioners (98 %) believe that exercise during pregnancy is beneficial, and were knowledgeable on most of the expected benefits. Seventy-eight percent believed that providing exercise advice is an important part of prenatal care, however only 19 % provided informational pamphlets and few (24 %) referred to exercise specialists. A large majority (83 %) were unaware of the recommended exercise guidelines. Although age and years of practice played no role in this awareness, practitioners who focussed on obstetrics and gynaecology were more likely to be aware of the current guidelines, than those in general practice (p < 0.001). CONCLUSION: Although the MPs were largely positive towards exercise during pregnancy, their advice did not always align with the current guidelines. Therefore, better dissemination of available research is warranted, to bridge the gap between clinical knowledge and current recommendations for physical activity promotion. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12884-015-0690-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. BioMed Central 2015-10-07 /pmc/articles/PMC4597379/ /pubmed/26446911 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12884-015-0690-1 Text en © Watson et al. 2015 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Research Article
Watson, Estelle D.
Oddie, Brydie
Constantinou, Demitri
Exercise during pregnancy: knowledge and beliefs of medical practitioners in South Africa: a survey study
title Exercise during pregnancy: knowledge and beliefs of medical practitioners in South Africa: a survey study
title_full Exercise during pregnancy: knowledge and beliefs of medical practitioners in South Africa: a survey study
title_fullStr Exercise during pregnancy: knowledge and beliefs of medical practitioners in South Africa: a survey study
title_full_unstemmed Exercise during pregnancy: knowledge and beliefs of medical practitioners in South Africa: a survey study
title_short Exercise during pregnancy: knowledge and beliefs of medical practitioners in South Africa: a survey study
title_sort exercise during pregnancy: knowledge and beliefs of medical practitioners in south africa: a survey study
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4597379/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26446911
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12884-015-0690-1
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