Association of self-efficacy for breaking up prolonged sitting with objectively measured sedentary behavior among office workers

抄録

Although self-efficacy is an important psychological factor for reducing sedentary behavior（SB）, it is not clear whether current scales of self-efficacy in changing SB sufficiently reflect actual changes in SB. Here, we examined the stability of a newly developed self-efficacy scale, and the relationship between self-efficacy and objectively-measured SB among office workers. We conducted two different surveys with office workers from companies located in Tokyo（n = 147）. The newly- developed scale used an 11-point Likert scale and asked participants whether they felt it was possible to stand regularly to break up prolonged sitting during working time. Five levels of duration were provided（30 to 120 minutes）. The overall and prolonged SB（30 consecutive minutes or longer）during working time were obtained by a tri-axial accelerometer. The self-efficacy score showed moderate（0.53, 95% CI: 0.34-0.68）levels of stability at the duration level of 30 minutes, and other levels’ stability tended to decrease with the increase of the level of duration measured（0.28 to 0.44）. The self-efficacy scores for standing up at least once every 30 or 45 minutes were significantly correlated with the total time（r = -0.28 and -0.29, respectively）, and with the number of bouts（r = -0.25 and -0.25, respectively） of objective prolonged SB. There were no significant correlations observed at longer levels of duration. The self- efficacy scores at every level of duration did not show any significant correlation with overall SB. These findings suggest that the self-efficacy for regularly standing up every 30 or 45 minutes might be an important psychological factor for reducing prolonged SB among office workers. Based on the findings of the study, it is recommended to use the single item of the self-efficacy scale（i.e., level of 30 min）to assess one’s perception for prolonged SB.