A NEW ACCELEROMETER (FIBION) DEVICE PROVIDES VALID SEDENTARY AND UPRIGHT TIME MEASUREMENTS COMPARED TO THE ACTIVPAL4 IN HEALTHY INDIVIDUALS

H.Y. Alkalih¹, A.J. Pesola², A. Arumugam^1,3,4

¹University of Sharjah, Department of Physiotherapy, College of Health Sciences, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, ²South-Eastern Finland University of Applied Sciences, RDI Unit, Active Life Lab, Mikkeli, Finland, ³Neuromusculoskeletal Rehabilitation Research Group, RIMHS–Research Institute of Medical and Health Sciences, University of Sharjah, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, ⁴Sustainable Engineering Asset Management Research Group, RISE-Research Institute of Sciences and Engineering, University of Sharjah, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates

Background: Thigh-worn accelerometers can accurately measure time spent sitting, standing and walking in free-living settings. The ActivPAL (PAL Technologies Ltd., Glasgow, UK) and Fibion (Fibion Inc, Jyväskylä, Finland) are small devices used for measuring sedentary behavior and physical activity levels in a free-living environment, that can be used to quantify physical activity and determine the time spent at different physical activity intensities.

Purpose: To investigate the concurrent validity of a new Fibion accelerometer and a validated ActivPAL(4) accelerometer for estimating sedentary and upright time in healthy individuals.

Methods: This study followed the Guidelines for Reporting Reliability and Agreement Studies. A total of 29 healthy individuals, aged between 18 and 50 years, wore the Fibion and ActivPAL4 devices on the same thigh with a non-allergic adhesive tape. Participants were asked to do their normal activities of daily living in a typical weekday which might include computer-based office works (i.e., sitting, standing, walking), leisure activities (i.e., watching TV, sitting on a sofa, going up and down stairs, driving, exercising), etc. However, the activities to be performed by the participants were not recommended by the research team. As there would be conflation of sedentary and upright time with night-time data, we included only the day time data for comparison between the devices. Concurrent validity of the Fibion and ActivPAL4 was assessed by comparing time spent in sitting, walking and standing using intraclass correlation coefficient and the Bland-Altman plots with 95% limits of agreement (mean bias ± [1.96 * standard deviation (SD)]). The following criteria were used to interpret the ICC scores: poor (<0.50), moderate (0.50–0.74), good (0.75–0.89) or excellent (0.90–1.0). While assessing agreement between the devices (in the Bland-Altman plots), the differences between devices were arbitrarily considered high if they were ≥1.5 SD, moderate if the differences ranged from 1.0 to 1.49 SD and low if the differences were <1.0 SD.

Results: We found a good correlation for time measured by both devices in sitting (ICC = 0.87, 95% CI = 0.72, 0.94) and standing (ICC =0.84, 95 % CI = 0.67,0.93) and an excellent correlation for time measured in walking (ICC = 0.97, 95% CI =0.92, 0.99). Analysis of the Bland Altman plots revealed a moderate agreement for sitting, standing and walking time between both devices because nearly all differences between Fibion and ActivPAL4 measurements were falling within 1.0 to 1.49 SD. No proportional bias was evident in the Bland-Altman plots.

Conclusions: The Fibion demonstrated good to excellent validity in measuring sedentary and upright time compared to the ActivPAL4 in healthy individuals.

Implications: The Fibion can be used to measure free-living sitting, standing and walking in adults, given good to excellent correlations and a reasonable agreement with the validated and widely used ActivPAL(4) device. Further studies on validation of the Fibion accelerometer in children and (older) adults with and/or without pathological conditions are warranted.

Funding acknowledgements: College of Graduate Studies, University of Sharjah, United Arab Emirates

Keywords:
Validation study
Physical activity
Accelerometer

Topics:
Health promotion & wellbeing/healthy ageing/physical activity
Musculoskeletal

Did this work require ethics approval? Yes

Institution: University of Sharjah

Committee: The Research Ethics Committee

Ethics number: REC-21-03-08-01-S