Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2018 Apr 20;8(4):e019959.
doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2017-019959.

Physical activities and influencing factors among public health nurses: a cross-sectional study

Miao-Ling Lin  1   2 , Joh-Jong Huang  3 , Hung-Yi Chuang  4 , Hsiu-Min Tsai  5 , Hsiu-Hung Wang  1
Affiliations

Physical activities and influencing factors among public health nurses: a cross-sectional study

Miao-Ling Lin et al. BMJ Open. .

Abstract

Objectives: Public health nurses are responsible for promoting and managing the health of community members, and if they do not have enough physical activity or ignore their own health, not only will their own health decline but the quality of life of the public will also be affected. This study investigated the physical activity of public health nurses and analysed the effects of attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioural control and behavioural intention to engage in physical activity.

Methods: This study adopted a cross-sectional research design, and convenience sampling was used to select the research subjects. 198 public health nurses were invited to participate, and 172 completed the questionnaire. Multiple linear regression was used to analyse the influencing factors of physical activity intention and physical activity.

Results: Attitudes towards physical activity and perceived behavioural control of physical activity affected physical activity intention. When they had higher behavioural intention, their physical activity behaviour also improved. The physical activity intention significantly influenced the number of days that they had engaged in vigorous physical activity (95% CI 0.1786 to 0.3060, p<0.0001), and significantly influenced the number of days that they walked daily for 10 min (95% CI 0.2158 to 0.4144, p<0.0001), and also significantly influenced their daily sedentary time (95% CI -0.3020 to 0.0560, p=0.0046).

Conclusions: Encouraging public health nurses to heed their own health and motivating them to engage in physical activity warrants attention from policy-makers and government health agencies.

Keywords: behavioral intention; physical activity; public health nurses; theory of planned behavior.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests: None declared.

References

    1. World Health Organization (WHO). The world’s most common diseases. 2015. http://www.who.int/nmh/publications/ncd-infographic-2014.pdf (accessed 10 Dec 2015).
    1. Albright C, Thompson DL. The effectiveness of walking in preventing cardiovascular disease in women: a review of the current literature. J Womens Health 2006;15:271–80. 10.1089/jwh.2006.15.271 - DOI - PubMed
    1. An R, Xiang X, Yang Y, et al. . Mapping the prevalence of physical inactivity in U.S. States, 1984-2015. PLoS One 2016;11:1–19. 10.1371/journal.pone.0168175 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Health Promotion Administration, Ministry of Health and Welfare, Taiwan. National Health Survey, 2012. 2012. http://www.hpa.gov.tw/BHPNet/Web/Stat/StatisticsShow.aspx?No=201403250003t (accessed 20 Dec 2016).
    1. Health Promotion Administration, Ministry of Health and Welfare, Taiwan. Annual Report, 2016. 2016. https://www.hpa.gov.tw/Pages/List.aspx?nodeid=1249 (accessed 20 Jun 2017).

Publication types