Physical activity and health programs: a review of adherence and drop out rates
Despite the potential benefits of exercise, many people who are given an exercise prescription fail to comply with it. Compliance rates for exercise programs and prescriptions have been estimated to range from…
RESUMEN COMUNICACIÓN/PÓSTER
ABSTRACT
Despite the potential benefits of exercise, many people who are given an exercise prescription fail to comply with it. Compliance rates for exercise programs and prescriptions have been estimated to range from 50 to 80% during the first 6 month and to fall to less than 50% after one year. We conducted a review of literature that focused on characteristics of the exercise protocols and the analysis of the adherence rates (during the physical activity protocols and post-intervention). Literature search was performed on the databases PubMed, OvidSP and SPORTDiscus through October 2007 and examined reference lists of retrieved articles. We included studies that did assess physical activity for at least one month. The average N was 859 with a mean age <40 years. They had hypertension (11%), cardiovascular disease (11%), low-density lipoprotein levels (11%), osteoarthritis (22%), diabetes (33%) and overweight (44%). Most of the studies (78%) had done one aerobic-training condition. On average, study participants were required to exercise for about 9.5 months, frequency of 4 days/week with a mean duration of 44 minutes for each session. We detected four different methods to estimate the adherence rate. Only 33% papers reviewed analyse the post-intervention exercise adherence. Future studies should quantify the post-intervention exercise adherence rates in order to confirm whether physical activity behaviour change occurs.
KEYWORDS: adherence, health promotion, exercise, quality of life, chronic diseases.
