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Review
. 2018 May 10:11:74-80.
doi: 10.1016/j.pmedr.2018.05.003. eCollection 2018 Sep.

Objective measurement of physical activity outcomes in lifestyle interventions among adults: A systematic review

Valerie J Silfee  1 , Christina F Haughton  1 , Danielle E Jake-Schoffman  1 , Andrea Lopez-Cepero  1 , Christine N May  2 , Meera Sreedhara  1 , Milagros C Rosal  1 , Stephenie C Lemon  1
Affiliations
Review

Objective measurement of physical activity outcomes in lifestyle interventions among adults: A systematic review

Valerie J Silfee et al. Prev Med Rep. .

Abstract

Valid, reliable, and direct measures of physical activity (PA) are critical to assessing the impact of lifestyle PA interventions. However, little is known about the extent to which objective measures have been used to assess the outcomes of lifestyle PA interventions. This systematic review had two aims: 1) evaluate the extent to which PA is measured objectively in lifestyle PA interventions targeting adults and 2) explore and summarize what objective measures have been used and what PA dimensions and metrics have been reported. Pubmed, Cochrane Central Register, and PsychInfo were searched for lifestyle PA interventions conducted between 2006 and 2016. Of the 342 articles that met the inclusion criteria, 239 studies measured PA via subjective measures and 103 studies measured PA via objective measures. The proportion of studies using objective measures increased from 4.4% to 70.6% from 2006 to 2016. All studies measuring PA objectively utilized wearable devices; half (50.5%) used pedometers only and 40.8% used accelerometers only. A majority of the 103 studies reported steps (73.8%) as their PA metric. Incorporating objective measures of PA should continue to be a priority in PA research. More work is needed to address the challenges of comprehensive and consistent collecting, reporting, and analyzing of PA metrics.

Keywords: Accelerometry; Interventions; Pedometer; Physical activity; Systematic review/meta-analysis.

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Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Consort diagram of physical activity lifestyle interventions.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Percentage of included studies that used objective measures of physical activity, by year of publication (N = 342).
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Physical activity data reported by lifestyle interventions using objective measures of physical activity (N = 103)*. *Studies may have reported more than one data type.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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