2018 Volume 20 Issue 1 Pages 26-36
Objective: Understanding which physical activity questionnaires are commonly used globally could help in studies of international comparisons in the future. This study aimed to summarize the global trends in the evaluation methodology of physical activity questionnaires for children and adolescents.
Methods: Literatures from 38 countries that participated in “The Report Card on Physical Activity for Children and Youth (Report Card)” were identified. Evidence to grade the overall physical activity levels in each country was collected to summarize the evaluation methodology of physical activity questionnaires for children and adolescents.
Results: The Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) questionnaire was used most frequently among the 38 countries (12 countries, 31.6%). The Global School-based student Health Survey (GSHS) questionnaire was the second popular questionnaire used in 6 countries (15.8%). In both HBSC and GSHS questionnaires, participants were asked to respond with “the number of days in which they achieved 60 minutes/day of moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA)”. On the other hand, several questionnaires contained “frequency” and “volume/time” of MVPA (IPAQ, GPAQ, PAQ-C/A, SHAPES, CLASS, AQuAA); however, only a few countries used those questionnaires.
Conclusion: The present study showed that evaluating the frequency of achieving 60 minutes/day of MVPA (e.g., HBSC and GSHS) was the most frequently used question to evaluate the overall physical activity in children and adolescents among 38 countries.
