Health Care Provider Physical Activity Prescription Intervention

Purpose

To examine the feasibility and impact of a health care provider's (HCP) physical activity (PA) prescription on the PA of patients on preventive care visits.

Methods

Consenting adult patients completed health and PA questionnaires and were sequentially assigned to intervention groups. HCPs prescribed PA using a written prescription only (PO), written prescription and exercise toolkit (PT), or written prescription and Active Living Guide (PALG). Follow-up questionnaires were completed at 1 and 3 months post.

Results

In the 24 patients (age 57 [10.01] years; body mass index (BMI) 33.4 [7.6]; 14 females, 10 males; 9 PO, 6 PT, 9 PALG) who returned questionnaires at baseline and 3 months, PA increased (p = .04) from baseline (3.5 [2.0]) to 3 months (4.3 [1.7]). Between-group analyses revealed that PT improved (p = .01) from baseline (3.0 [1.1]) to 3 months (4.8 [0.4]); PO and PALG did not. Among the 22 patients who returned questionnaires at 3 time points, PA increased (p = .01) from 1 month (3.7 [1.3]) to 3 months (4.4 [1.6]).

Discussion and Translation to Health Education Practice

HCPs' written prescriptions, with a PA resource (exercise toolkit), enhanced patients' PA levels over 3 months. Although this study needs to be replicated in larger samples of patients and HCPs, inclusion of PA recommendations appears to be feasible and merited in preventive care consultations.