Lack of physical activity contributes to a significant level of chronic diseases in the United States. Presently, only 33% of adults in the country engage in the recommended amount of moderate or vigorous physical activity. In order to increase participation in physical activity, it is important for adult nurse practitioners (ANPs) to discuss physical activity participation with patients. In addition to providing physical activity counseling, it would be useful if ANPs could provide physical fitness assessment, which gives an objective and valid assessment of the results of having engaged in physical activity. To date, minimal research has been done that examines how ANPs measure physical fitness in their patients. The purpose of this study is to examine how ANPs counsel and assess for physical activity practices, as well as utilize physical fitness measure with their adult patients. A representative group of ANPs (N=1500) who are members of the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners have been randomly selected to participate in this nonexperimental design study. Information is being gathered which includes demographic and practice setting data, as well as physical activity and physical fitness assessment and counseling practices. The first five sections of this survey are a replication of a 1997 nationally distributed questionnaire of ANPs, conducted by Burns and colleagues. In order to explore physical fitness measures, the researchers added a sixth section to include more extensive questioning related to how nurse practitioners measure physical fitness. A letter discussing the questionnaire along with a URL to access the questionnaire has been mailed to ANPs. Typing in the URL and using an individualized password directly link the subject to a web-based questionnaire. Descriptive, bivariate and regression statistics will be used to analyze the data. This study will provide a framework for a future physical activity and physical fitness intervention project.
Session #1219 - Poster Session I
The 29th Annual MNRS Research Conference (April 1-4, 2005)