Sedentary lifestyles are rising in many countries which has implications for global health. Health professionals are well placed to promote increased physical activity levels to their patients.
Objective:
To examine the relationship between physicians’ and nurses’ personal physical activity and their physical activity promotion practices.
Methods:
Cochrane Library, PubMed, MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL, PsychInfo, British Nursing Index and four Chinese databases were searched to March 2011. Extracted data were verified by a second researcher.
Results:
Thirteen studies met the inclusion criteria and were cross-sectional surveys employing a variety of self-report questionnaires. The majority of studies found that a higher personal physical activity level was associated with higher physical activity-promoting practices, and that health professionals with positive attitudes towards physical activity were more likely to promote physical activity to their clients.
Conclusion:
The findings of this review need to be confirmed by well-designed large studies which employ validated measures of physical activity and physical activity-promoting practices and involve multivariate analyses to identify the relative contribution of personal physical activity levels to physical activity-promoting practices.
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